


The Lernaean Bow

by zaffre



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Wings, Barebacking, Bottom Castiel (Supernatural), Bottom Castiel/Top Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Dean/Cas Big Bang 2020 (Supernatural), Dying Dean Winchester, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fandom Trumps Hate 2020, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Love Confessions, M/M, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Rimming, Shipper Sam, Stabbing, Top Dean Winchester, Torture, Tortured Dean Winchester, Wings, but it's brief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:42:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 44,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27039661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaffre/pseuds/zaffre
Summary: Real life isn’t a fairytale, and TFW knows that better than anyone. But after Cas keeps spinning yarns for Dean while he’s dying, Dean is left wondering about a common theme in those stories. Will he figure out the message in time or will Cas forever believe he’s unwanted? Meanwhile, Meg’s stirring up ancient trouble with the help of a Greek goddess, and Sam just wants a good night’s sleep for once.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 25
Kudos: 138
Collections: DCBB 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I want to thank my artist, verobatto-angelxhunter ([tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/verobatto-angelxhunter)/[AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BENKA79/works)), for being such an amazing partner. This was my first DCBB and they have spoiled me for all other artists. I was overwhelmed by how kind and encouraging they were and absolutely blown away by the art they produced. Check it out their kickass art [here](https://verobatto-angelxhunter.tumblr.com/post/632128601395019776/hi-i-present-to-all-of-you-my-artwork-for-the)!
> 
> Second, I am SO grateful to the fabulous [MalMuses](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/MalMuses) for being my beta. She was so supportive and did an amazing job helping me get my words in the right order. I won her as my beta from the Fandom Trumps Hate auction back in February and she patiently waited several months for me to get my act together with this fic. And then when my posting date moved up by a month, she totally stepped up to get this fic ready for posting. Thank you so so much, MalMuses!!
> 
> Finally, I am incredibly grateful to the DCBB mods for running this challenge. This bang was a bright spot in a shitty year, and I hope they know how much good they are infusing into the world by volunteering their time and energy to make this bang happen.
> 
> And now for the fic...I have no idea which season this is set during, maybe 10, maybe 11? Cas isn’t up to full power, but neither is he completely helpless. But there’s no Mark of Cain or Amara. Also, Meg is alive because I say so and no one can stop me. And Rowena is nice to TFW in this, which I realize she wasn’t really during her early seasons. What can I say, I love Rowena.

Dean stares down at the arrow that appears suddenly in his thigh between one breath and the next, and it takes another breath before the pain hits him. 

Then he crumples to the ground.

Sam is at his side in an instant.

“Dean?!”

“Ah, fuck. God damn it. Fucking hell,” spits out Dean, trying not to move too much. He grips the sides of his leg and suppresses the groans of pain that want to burst from his lips.

A deep-throated chuckle comes from across the large warehouse. Dean opens his eyes, barely able to against the pain. Meg lowers the bow she’s still aiming at him and offers a smirk.

“I did warn you.”

Cas drops his angel blade into his hand and charges at Meg. She deflects his blow with the bow, dodging away.

“Clarence! I wouldn’t break this bow if you know what’s good for your Dean-o over there. In fact, you might want to go check on him. He’s not looking so good.” 

Cas pauses and glances back at Dean.

Whatever he sees, probably all the blood quickly soaking through Dean’s jeans, makes him take a step toward Dean.

“Cas, what are you doing? Get her!” yells Dean. Or tries to. It comes out as a hoarse cry, and Sam winces.

“But Dean,” starts Cas, and before anyone can move, Meg dashes out the side door.

Cas turns and then rushes after her. 

Sam pulls out a knife, cuts away at Deans jeans to expose the puncture wound. The arrow quivers in the air as Dean tries to keep his leg as still as possible. But the pain makes him flinch and Sam nicks him while he’s cutting away the jeans.

“Shit, sorry.”

“Whatever,” Dean grits out. “Just get it over with.”

Sam pulls the bloodied cloth away and the grim look on his face tells Dean everything. He hefts himself up on his elbows to look down his body at his leg and immediately drops back onto the dirty floor. 

The wound is deep, and the entire arrowhead is in his leg. Blood is rapidly oozing out and there’s a good chance he’s going to bleed out in this old warehouse. Perfect. Just the way he’d imagined going. Fucking Meg and her fucking bow. How was he supposed to know she was going to actually shoot him?

Cas returns, looking harried.

“Well?” demands Dean, weakly.

“She escaped. There was a woman in a running car and Meg was able to reach it before I could.”

“Great. Just great.”

“And she shot out two of the Impala’s tires as they drove away. I don’t believe your vehicle is drivable anymore.”

“Of course it’s not.” Dean wheezes out.

Cas crouches down and holds his hand over the arrow wound.

“I can’t heal this.”

Dean just drops his head back onto the concrete. “Great. Well, it’s been nice knowing you both.”

“Shut up, you idiot,” says Sam, not entirely joking. He pulls out his cell phone and tries to punch in 911. “Damn it, no service.”

Dean weakly laughs. “Guess my number’s up. Meg finally got me, the bitch.”

“No she didn’t. We’ve gotten out of worse before,” insists Sam.

“Do me a favor and make sure that my letters to Busty Asian Beauties’ editor get mailed, okay?” 

“Why would correspondence be your primary concern right now?” asks Cas, trying to heal him again but obviously failing.

“He’s just being dramatic. You two hold tight, I’m going to get help,” instructs Sam, rising from the warehouse floor. “Make sure he doesn’t fall asleep, okay, Cas?”

Cas nods grimly and turns to face Dean. 

“You’re leaving me with the worst entertainer, you know that, Sammy.”

“Shut up and don’t die before I get back.”

“Whatever, bitch.”

“Jerk.” And then Sam is out the door, running. 

Dean watches the door for a beat, then turns to Cas. “So, how’re you going to keep me from expiring on your watch? ‘Cuz I gotta say, the odds most definitely aren’t in your favor right now.”

Cas looks concerned. “I’m unfamiliar with the conventional methods of entertainment during events such as these.”

“I don’t know, tell me a story or something. Anything to keep my mind off of the pain. Just make sure it’s not about demons.”

“A story?”

“Yeah, spin me a yarn why don’t you.”

“I don’t understand how this will help.” Cas sits down beside Dean, a puff of dust and dirt kicking up off of the dirty floor as he does.

“It’s a distraction, okay? To keep me from thinking about my imminent demise,” says Dean. He gestures around. “Especially not in some shithole in Cincinnati of all places.”

“And you don’t want it to feature demons.”

“Not particularly at the moment, no.”

Cas cocks his head. “Should I also avoid other supernatural beings beyond demons in this tale?”

“Yeah, go for it.”

Cas pauses for a moment, thinking, then his eyes widen slightly. “I believe I may have recently read a tale that will serve this purpose.

_ “There once was a pair of lions who lived on the African Plains. They shared a strong pride with many different types of animals and all was well. That is, until the day the sun stopped setting. After several days, all of the rivers and lakes dried up, and the animals began to fear that they would die of thirst. So the two lions called all the animals together to come up with a solution. _

_ “First, the cheetah, the fastest of the animals, stepped forward and promised to run to the edges of the Plains to see if there was any more water to be found. She ran for three days, all around the edge of the Plains and through the middle, but when she returned on the third day, she reported to the lions that there was no more water anywhere to be seen. _

_ “Next, the elephant, the largest of the animals, stepped forward and promised to smell out sources of water in the Plains. She sniffed for three days and on the third day returned to tell the lions and the other animals that there was no more water in the ground. _

_ “Next, the giraffe, the tallest of the animals, stepped forward and promised to reach up into the sky and knock the sun down so that it could be night again and then maybe the water would return. She went to the highest outcropping in the land and reached and reached and reached for three days, but on the third day she returned to the lions and told them that she was not tall enough.  _

_ “Now at this point, the animals were growing desperate. None of them could come up with a solution and they began to despair. Then, the crane stepped forward and told the lions that he had a plan to save them. The lions were skeptical because the crane was not the fastest, the largest, or the tallest, so what could he possibly hope to achieve. But the crane promised that he would not fail them. And so the crane flew up and up and up and when he reached the clouds, he pecked at them.  _

_ “Water began to fall from the holes the crane had pecked into the clouds. Before long, all of the rivers and lakes were full again and all the animals rejoiced. When the crane landed, the lions awarded the crane a crown for saving all the animals. And that is the story of why African cranes have crowns _ .”

A momentary pause as the final words of the tale settle, and then Dean declares, “That was terrible.”

Cas frowns down at Dean. “It fit the criteria you specified.”

“What am I, five? I don’t have to have a story about animals. Not that there’s anything wrong with stuff like the Lion King. Just, come on.”

“It was a modified retelling of a Ugandan Folktale entitled ‘How the Crane Got its Crown’. The lesson is that you should always ask for help from the right source. A lesson I’ve learned well myself.”

Dean recalls the instance Cas is probably referencing and makes a thoughtful noise that turns into a grunt of discomfort halfway through. Cas hovers his hand near Dean’s leg anxiously. “Is the pain worsening?”

“Nah,” Dean dismisses. “I’ll be fine as long as Sam gets his ass back here soon.”

Cas gives Dean a look like he knows Dean’s lying. “I still don’t understand how Meg was able to find the Lernaean bow. Or why I can’t heal the arrow’s damage.”

Dean just pulls a face. “Meg’s always been a crafty bitch. Now come on, you’re supposed to be distracting me with a story.”

Cas squints. “You just said you did not care for the one I just told you despite the fact it was fictional, relatable, and did not involve demons or any other supernatural creatures you have encountered.”

“Fine. Tell me one that has a happy ending, then. Same parameters, just no silly lesson.”

“The vast majority of fairy tales involve the protagonist learning something new about themselves or the world,” Cas points out. “I thought you said you wanted something entertaining.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “This isn’t supposed to be an after-school special.”

Cas takes this into consideration for a moment. “Perhaps a variation on a theme, then?”

“Go for it.”

_ “Once upon a time there was a crane and a heron who dwelt in a bog together. _

_ “They each lived in little huts in this bog, but on opposite ends. Despite this distance, Crane and Heron were good friends. Each morning they would wave to one another before taking flight, and every night they would share a meal and conversation. It was a good life, a contented life. _

_ “But soon Crane began to wish for more time with Heron. He began to wish that he did not have to leave after the evening meal and conversation. For you see, he did not care for living alone any longer when the one he had grown to love was so close by. _

_ “So one afternoon he flew across the bog to Heron’s hut and knocked. Heron answered, surprised to see Crane so early for their evening meal. _

_ “Heron, I have something to ask of you.” _

_ “Yes?” _

_ “Heron, I have cared for you for as long as I have known you. And in that time I have also grown to love you. Will you come live with me?” _

_ “But Heron just shook his head. “No Crane, I will not live with you. Your wings are ratty, you fly poorly, and you cannot support me. You should leave now.” _

_ “Crane sadly flew back to his hut and took a long look at his reflection in the bog. His wings were ratty. He did fly poorly. He could not support Heron. How could he have been so foolish to believe he could be what Heron needed? So he closed himself up in his hut and hid himself away in shame, prepared to remain that way indefinitely. _

_ “Three days later, there was a knock at his door. Crane opened it to find Heron, looking uncertain. _

_ “Hello, Heron.” _

_ “Heron shifted, unable to look Crane in the eye. “I’ve made a mistake, Crane.” _

_ “Crane said nothing, waiting for Heron to explain. _

_ “I have grown tired of living alone. I should not have refused you.” _

_ “And that is the reason why you wish to live with me? Because you don’t want to be alone?” _

_ “Yes.” _

_ “Crane shook his head. “If that is why you wish to be with me, then I will not live with you.” _

_ “So, Heron flew home alone and they lived apart but still as friends for the rest of their days.” _

“Not exactly a happy ending, there.”

“No, but at least they remained friends.”

“You really like cranes, huh?”

Cas frowns at him. “Do you not?”

“No, just never knew they were in so many fairy tales.”

“That was actually a Russian folktale.”

“There’s a difference?”

Cas opens his mouth to explain, but Dean cuts him off.

“No, never mind. What else you got? That one was a little weak on the ending. Also, not really digging the chick flick moments.”

“I should examine your wound again.”

“No need. It’s the same.”

“Dean, you are grimacing approximately twice as often as you were five minutes ago, and the lore of which I’m aware indicates that the pain will increase exponentially until your death.”

“Way to make me feel better, Cas,” chides Dean, grimacing involuntarily. The arrow in his thigh quivers as his body trembles in pain.

Cas looks away and toward a pile of empty pallets. “I’m concerned, Dean.”

“I know.”

“I could go look for-”

“No, stay here. I need you to keep me conscious.”

Desperate for a distraction for both of them, Cas offers, “Perhaps another story, then.”

“Yeah, why not. Can’t be worse than the last two.”

_ “There once was a Fox who invited a Crane to dine with him. Fox was a trickster, so he served soup in a bowl for supper. When Crane tried to drink the soup, he was unable due to his long beak. The Fox gleefully lapped up the dinner and watched the Crane struggle. _

_ “Crane then invited Fox to dine with him the next day. Fox agreed and arrived to find that Crane had served fish in a vase. No matter how Fox tried to get at the fish, the narrow neck prohibited him. Meanwhile, Crane had no problem reaching the fish with his long beak. _

_ “And so, tricksters must expect trickery in return and one should do to others as one wishes to be done to them.” _

“That was the shortest one yet.”

“You were complaining. I thought brevity best.”

“And the crane again, huh?”

Cas shrugs. “It’s one of Aesop’s fables.”

“The Fox acting tricky sounds a little too much like Gabriel for my liking.”

“Gabriel no doubt would have transformed the Crane’s vessel into a bowl had he actually been there in person.”

Dean frowns. “Cas, do you even know any fairytales with happy endings?

“Life is rarely happy. Why should you consume stories made to mislead people into believing otherwise?”

“Because it gives us some relief from the relentless negativity. It’s not a bad thing to want to have hope you know, Cas.”

Cas rolls his eyes. “Hope can be foolish at times.”

“You don’t think hope didn’t save our asses on more than one occasion? Sometimes all Sam or I had was hope that we wouldn’t make something worse or that something would go right and we would make it through.”

When Cas doesn’t answer, Dean grabs his shoulder to get his attention. “What’s going on, buddy?”

“What’s going on is that you have been fatally wounded and hoping that Sam will arrive in time is less useful than actually doing something to ensure his arrival.”

“He’ll make it. Sam’s too sentimental to let anything happen to me.”

“I could go look for another means of conveyance. I could attempt to find a signal on my phone in order to research further information about the lore surrounding Lernaean arrows. I could do something that isn’t sitting here watching you die! If only I had my wings again, I could be of use.”

Dean is taken aback by the wildness in Cas’ voice. “Cas, don’t forget I asked you to stay here with me and tell me terrible stories to keep my mind off the pain. So if anyone’s to blame if I croak, it’s me.”

Cas glares down at him. “You will not die, Dean.”

“Now who’s got hope?”

Cas huffs.

Dean makes a pained noise and shifts so he can lie down. “Just gonna rest my eyes for a second.”

“You mustn’t, Dean. You must keep your heart elevated above the arrow. Sam said–”

“Sam said you should entertain me while he’s gone and that’s not going so well, so I think I’ll just take a rest.”

Cas quickly shuffles over so he’s behind Dean and puts his arms under Dean’s.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I will support your torso if you are unable to keep it upright.”

“Fine.”

An uneasy silence falls. Cas tries to think of something to fill it, something to say to keep Dean’s mind off of the arrow and his pain. But Cas has never been very useful when it comes to helping the Winchesters navigate the more emotional sides of their humanity. So he attempts to deliver on Dean’s previous request.

“I believe I have one more story for you.”

“Please let it be something with explosions and hot chicks.”

“Prepare to have your expectations lowered. This tale features neither of those things.”

Dean groans. “Get on with it, then. Not like I’m dying or anything.”

_ “There once was a crane that didn’t fit in with the other cranes. He didn’t look like them and _ –”

Dean interrupts. “This isn’t a riff on the Ugly Duckling, is it?”

“I thought most humans perceived precocial avian offspring to be pleasing in appearance.”

“You know some Japanese and Russian folklore but haven’t heard of the Ugly Duckling? We’ve gotta stop letting Sam come up with your reading lists.”

Cas purses his lips. “Fine. Allow me to begin again differently.”

_ “Once upon a time there was a tribe of cranes. For many years they lived together in peace and all was well. Then one day there was a fight over whether other species of animals should be loved as much as the cranes and the tribe split in two. The tribe was never the same after the split, and so came the rule that should any crane be found loving another species it would be crippled and banished. _

_ “For long years one of the cranes followed the rules and customs of his tribe without question. He would rise early each morning to call to the blue sky, fly in formation with his tribe, and do his duty to the tribe. It was a good life and the crane was content. _

_ “But then came the day the crane stumbled upon a beaver trapped underwater, certain to drown without help. And the crane could not let it suffer and die, he just could not. So he freed it and brought it to the shore, nursed it back to health with breath from its own lungs. And the beaver, though not completely grateful for the rescue, fascinated the crane enough that he began to spend all of his free time with it. _

_ “Suddenly the other cranes began to judge him, especially after they discovered him spending extensive time with the beaver. They judged him for not following their custom, and for not thinking less of the other species. They feared that their kin was beginning to care for the other species and they would have to cripple and banish him. At the same time, the crane began to realize his tribe was not as good as it claimed to be, not as virtuous and kind as they had declared themselves. _

_ “But the beaver, although it sometimes teased him or forgot him or abandoned him, at least it was because he was another species and didn’t understand how much he was hurting him. The truth was, the beaver made the crane feel like all the ridicule and judgment from the other cranes was worth it because the crane lo—”  _

A loud screeching sound from the opposite side of the warehouse halts Cas’ voice. They both look up and sigh in relief when Sam shoves his way past a rusted door, but Dean’s sigh turns to a groan at the short figure trailing behind.

“Guess who suddenly showed up and offered his help,” says Sam unnecessarily.

“I heard the little squirrel had been poked with something rather nasty and wanted to see for myself,” purrs Crowley, offering a self-satisfied smirk as he surveys the scene before him. “Oh, so sorry to interrupt your cozy little tableau.”

Dean’s confused for a moment, and then realizes that Cas is still cradling his body. He grits his teeth and pushes away from Cas’ support even though it feels like he’s being gutted. “Why is he here?”

“He can help,” says Sam, then quickly adds at Dean’s thunderous expression, “There’s a potion that can stop the poison from spreading. But one of the ingredients is rare and will take too long for us to acquire.”

Cas speaks up. “And he just happened to have it on hand?”

“ _ He _ is quite resourceful. And prepared,” says Crowley smugly. From his suit jacket he pulls out a crystal vial, then waggles it at them.

“Prepared? More like you knew Meg had that bow on hand and you were covering your ass.”

Crowley looks affronted at Dean’s accusation. “I hold in my hands the very thing that will save your life and all I ask is a small favor for it and you are going to insult me?”

“A favor? And what will it cost us, this ‘favor’?” And there’s Cas, asking the important questions.

“Nothing too terrible. I just want you to find out what our darling Meg is plotting and stop it. Easy peasy.” He twirls the vial.

“Not giving us much of a choice, here, Crowley,” says Sam, exasperated.

“You’re not going to let your precious brother die, are you?” coos Crowley, then looks over at Cas. “And I don’t even know what you’d do if your favorite mud buddy expired permanently. And it’d be all because you were too afraid to take on one little demon.”

“She’s not just one ‘little demon’ and since you aren’t taking her on yourself, it seems likely she’s engaged in some kind of incredibly dangerous plot that you wish to remain free from,” points out Cas.

“Your choice, Feathers. Let me know when you’ve decided to see it my way.” Crowley puts his hands in his pockets and starts whistling in forced nonchalance, giving Cas, Sam, and Dean a moment to confer.

Sam comes closer and takes a peek at the wound. The skin around the arrow’s shaft is starting to turn purple, and the quivering from earlier has increased to full-on tremors. The bleeding has stopped, but Dean’s lips and face are drained of color.

Cas looks grim. “We have no choice. Dean won’t survive until we find another solution.”

“But trust Crowley? And then have to hunt down Meg again, who just shot me?”

“Don’t think you get to have a vote in this, Dean,” says Sam. “Pretty sure you’ve lost too much blood.”

Dean grunts his assent.

“Cas?”

Cas’ eyes don’t leave Dean. “Yes?”

“Are we sure?”

“Meg can be dealt with later. Dean needs help now. We must make the deal.”

“I knew you’d cooperate, Castiel. Even angels can sometimes be reasonable.”

They all start a little at Crowley’s voice so close and loud.

Sam holds out his hand for the vial. But Crowley lifts a finger and twitches it back and forth. “Ah ah ah, deal first.”

“What, you want a signature or something?”

One corner of Crowley’s mouth quirks upward. “Or I could be convinced to revisit my old days as a crossroads demon. Feel free to choose amongst yourselves who gets to lay one on me. I, of course, have a preference, but understand if—”

Cas glares. “A signature will be sufficient.”

“Fine.” Crowley pulls out a contract. “Slightly shorter than my usual, but since I suppose this is an emergency I can forgo some of the usual clauses and such.”

“How generous of you,” says Cas dryly as Sam pulls the parchment toward himself to read it.

It takes a long moment before Sam takes the pen Crowley is holding and signs the document. In the meantime, Cas looks worriedly down at Dean. His breathing has accelerated and his skin is looking waxy. Blood has begun pooling in the corners of his mouth. They need to do something and they need to do it now.

“Ah, one more thing I should mention before you take that—this potion will not heal any of the damage done by the poison.”

“Excuse me?” Dean’s voice is weak. Cas suspects he’s only moments away from passing out.

“An arrow fired from the Lernaean bow is a nasty mix of poison and magic. This potion will only neutralize the magic. The wound will remain.”

“Any other important details you care to share?” huffs Sam.

“I just didn’t want you getting all pissy when things didn’t go poof. Though I should mention the directions for this potion mentioned some other component that would instantly heal the wound. It’s not something I could possibly provide,” at this he gives Cas a pointed look, then adds, “Though I’m sure Dean will heal just fine without it if need be.”

Cas snatches the vial from Crowley, unstoppers it, and carefully brings it to Dean’s lips. As much as he doesn’t trust Crowley and would rather test this potion on someone else before giving it directly to Dean, Cas knows they don’t have any time left to question Crowley. Dean is full-on shaking now, too weak to even manage to hold the vial himself, and the wound has grown so ghastly that Cas can’t bear to look at it any more.

So although it goes against his every instinct, Cas watches Dean drink down the potion as Sam kneels down next to them. They both watch Dean’s color, his white lips with blood at the corners, both glance down at the arrow wound and wait, wait, wait for something to change, for the spread of the ugly wound to stop.

When nothing happens for almost a full minute, Sam looks over his shoulder at Crowley and gives him an angry look. Cas’ fingers tighten around the vial, the urge to smash it against Crowley’s smug expression growing by the second.

Then Dean coughs once, a bloody spray, and his head lolls back in a poor imitation of an abandoned rag doll. Sam gasps and starts to reach toward Dean, but Cas is already there, cradling the back of Dean’s head in his hands and frantically searching his face for signs of life.

“What—did he pass out?”

“It appears so, yes.”

“What the hell, Crowley!” demands Sam, rising from his crouch and starting toward him. “I thought you said this would heal him.”

“It should…I mean, mother said it would.”

“Mother? You mean Rowena’s the one who made that for you? And you sold it to us for Meg?”

“A rather cunning use of resources, don’t you think?”

“Dean is unconscious, not healed. When does that happen?”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “I don’t exactly have a little set of instructions that I’m withholding from you, you know. Mother brewed it up after we heard that Meg might have the bow in her possession. She told me to take it as soon as possible to stop the spread of the damage. That’s all I know. That’s all she told me.”

“You better call her right now and find out why Dean’s not on his feet and snarking at you right now or I’m going to rip–”

“No need for violence, Moose. I exchanged that potion with you in good faith, not as a power play. Let me see,” Crowley pulls out his phone, “what she has to say.”

But before Crowley can even unlock his phone, Dean suddenly jerks upright with a strangled shout, startling everyone.

“Dean!” Sam rushes back over, while Cas places a steadying hand on Dean’s shoulder. Even Crowley looks momentarily relieved to see Dean awake again.

“Are you okay? How do you feel?” asks Sam.

“Ugh, that potion tasted terrible.” Dean sticks his tongue out.

“You look less like death than before,” says Sam.

“Feel it.” Dean spits out the blood in his mouth, then wipes this mouth with his sleeve. Then he looks down at the arrow. “Think I can pull this out now?”

“You shouldn’t—” starts Cas, but before he can finish his thought, Dean is tugging the arrow back out of his leg.

There’s a fresh gush of blood, and it must hurt horribly, but Dean just grits his teeth and finishes yanking it out.

“You probably should have waited until we could have grabbed the first aid kit from the car, you know.” Sam practically clucks like a disapproving mother. Dean just grunts, then uses Cas to stand up. Dean must be still pretty hurt, though, because he doesn’t release his hand from Cas’ shoulder. Probably trying to save face in front of Crowley.

“Should we maybe keep the arrow?” Sam asks, warily eyeing the inert piece of wood.

“It’s useless now,” Crowley tells them. “The power comes from the bow.”

“And yet, it sure fucked me up real good after it’d left the bow, so I think we’re gonna keep it.” Dean examined the arrow. “Never know when you might need something like this to save the world or whatever.” Sam takes it from him, then they all sort of look expectantly at Crowley.

“Well, you know what you must do now. I expect I don’t need to emphasize the urgency of this matter?” He nods at Dean’s leg. “Or the potential consequences of failing to stop her?”

“No. Now get out of here before we start to consider how coincidental it was you showed up here with just what we needed.”

Crowley opens his mouth as if to argue, then just shrugs and vanishes.

The moment he vanishes, Dean staggers, as if he’s lost his balance. Sam rushes over and offers a second supportive shoulder, and together they limp over to a pile of wooden pallets so Dean can sit.

“Maybe stood up a little fast,” Dean admits, sounding a bit breathless.

“Is it your leg? Does it still pain you?” asks Cas, completely disregarding personal space to continue monitoring Dean’s color and breathing, both of which have gone slightly wonky, but are much improved from a few minutes ago.

“Not too bad.” Translation: it still hurts like a bitch and I very much want to be home right now, not stuck in some gross warehouse.

“You’ll live,” said Sam, but there is still a note of concern in his voice. “Think you can make it to the Impala?”

Dean tries to stand again, but winces and plonks back down on the pallets.

“I will carry you,” Cas announces.

“Uh, not gonna happen.”

“I have superior strength and you remain gravely injured. This is the most efficient way to return you to the car so that we can then return to the hotel and treat your wound.”

“Not a fainting lady, Cas. I can make it out there.”

“No, you are a stubborn man who refuses to receive help that he would happily give if the situation was reversed.”

This seems to chastise Dean a bit. “Fine, you can help me out there. But,” he adds when Cas moves to pick him up bridal style, “you’re not carrying me.”

“You heard Cas, it’s the most efficient way,” teases Sam.

Dean glares at him, then tries to put his weight on his bum leg again. This time it doesn’t seem to hurt quite so badly, so he motions for Cas to come closer, and then he’s on his feet again, using Cas as a crutch.

They make it out to the Impala, and then Cas is helping ease him gently into the backseat. Sam pulls a blanket out of the trunk to give Dean something to pad his back against the door, and pulls out the first aid kit to quickly treat Dean’s wound, though it’s mostly stopped bleeding at this point. 

It takes a couple hours for the tow truck to get them, and another couple to get new tires on Baby. Fortunately, Dean had a spare pair of pants in his bag and changes into them before the tow truck gets there and they get questioned about more than why they are in a skeezy part of the neighborhood to begin with.

Then they’re off, headed back to Lebanon, chatting about the new mystery of Meg, Cas reiterating his confusion about the bow and Sam chiming in with some mythology. Dean eventually drifts off, the hum of the road and the comforting smells of the Impala easing him into sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam needs a nap.

He’d been doing nothing but reading up on Greek mythology since they returned from Cincinnati. The Lernaean bow was turning out to be a more difficult search parameter than most. Although he’d put the word out with other hunters to keep an eye out for the bow and it’s current wielder, nothing had come in yet. So whatever Meg was up to, it was pretty secretive for now. Never a good sign.

And the lack of information about the bow was concerning. All Sam could find was something about a Hydra. Dean’s leg still hadn’t healed any further, and Sam was definitely worried about the slight limp. It was only slight, but sometimes they only got through a situation by the skin of their teeth, so any small disadvantage, whether it be one of them twisting an ankle or the Impala’s battery dying, could mean the difference between stopping the monsters in time and not. And this Meg thing clearly had Crowley’s interest, so it wasn’t going to be small potatoes.

With a sigh, Sam turns back to the book he was reading on Greek weaponry. The Men of Letters had done a fairly good job classifying all the lore, but the section on weapons was jumbled. And there wasn’t any table of contents to conveniently help him search. So, he was having to systematically skim each chapter for keywords and clues. Not the most efficient method, but no major hunts have pinged lately, so he figures he has some time.

“Sam?”

Sam nearly jumps out of his skin. Cas is standing right in front of him—how had he snuck up on Sam so easily? Maybe it really was time for a nap.

“My apologies for startling you.”

“It’s fine, Cas. I was just preoccupied. What’s up?”

“Do you require assistance?”

“Sure, I could always use help. Maybe you’ll find something—I’ve struck out so far.”

“There has been no information on the Lernaean bow? I’d believed it to be an essential element to at least one myth. Perhaps it was its formation myth.”

“Formation? The bow wasn’t found or forged by a god?”

“No, it was created in the heat of battle, or so I believe the myth went.”

“Huh. Do you know why we can’t heal Dean any more?” asks Sam.

Cas’ shoulders droop. “No, I don’t.”

“It’s okay, Cas. I know you’d help him if you could,” reassures Sam.

“It’s disconcerting to see him limping about.”

“Yeah. He’s trying to hide it, but I think it might be bad enough that he can’t run on it right now.”

“You are likely correct. Perhaps it’s fortunate, then, that there have been no nearby hunts.”

Sam frowns. “Yeah, that does seem fortunate. In fact, it’s been really quiet everywhere for the last couple of weeks. It kinda feels like everyone’s holding their breath or something.”

“Whatever for?”

“I don’t know. And that’s troubling.”

\---

Two days later, and the world erupts into chaos.

First, a hurricane comes out of nowhere and drenches the southeast. The meteorologists are completely baffled—it’s months out of hurricane season and there was no progression from tropical storm to hurricane as the front moved from the equator toward the gulf coast. Instead, one day the hurricane wasn’t there, and the next, a Category 4 hurricane was pounding Texas and Louisiana. Evacuations had been declared, but the storm was just sitting there, not moving, somehow maintaining power despite mostly sitting over the mainland and away from its usual power source of the Gulf.

Then, just a couple hours later, a massive wildfire swept through a large swath of the Appalachian Mountains. Not usually a region to burn, everyone had been blindsided when West Virginia and Pennsylvania suddenly went up in flames like it was California during fire season. Fortunately, that one had burned itself out quickly, but there had been a lot of property damage and people were on edge, afraid it would happen again. No arsonists had been found, though that was the prevailing theory on how so much of the forest could simultaneously erupt into fire.

Then the next morning they were sitting at breakfast discussing the strange weather and an alert flashed on Sam’s phone—three dormant volcanoes in Washington and Oregon were showing signs of going active, large amounts of smoke billowing up into the sky and blocking out the sun. Cas had looked perplexed until Sam had explained that volcanoes didn’t just decide to erupt out of nowhere usually, and definitely not three at the same time.

But the most disturbing thing of all—in all three natural disasters, there were eyewitness statements that massive figures were moving about in the rain, fire, and smoke. Most people were claiming the first two were the result of climate change messing with the weather and the environment’s natural cycle, and that the people claiming to have seen figures in the weather were just delusional and hallucinating from fear.

Sam, Dean, and Cas knew better, though. And given the timing, Sam couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Meg wasn’t somehow involved.

Dean immediately agreed when he brought it up to the rest of the group. “Big and flashy isn’t usually her style, but I get the feeling from how cagey Crowley was being that she’s been thinking about making some kind of big move for a while now, and all it took was some time to marshal her resources.”

“Then why shoot you?” asks Sam, putting his fork down and picking up his phone again to check for any updates from other hunters. His texts are quiet, though.

“To get us out of the way? I kick it and you two spend a while mourning for dear ol’ Dean by throwing a kegger?”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, that’s what we’d do.”

“Come on, Sammy. I told you that I want you to have a giant party. Can’t stand the thought of you being all pitiful and sad,” declares Dean, taking a big bite of bacon.

Cas sighs in irritation. “If she is responsible, what has she summoned to create such large-scale calamities in such short time spans?”

“Was hoping you might be able to illuminate us on that one,” says Sam. “This seems kinda your speed, or at least in the angelic weight-class.”

Cas takes a moment to consider. “There are such things as elemental creatures, but they have been dormant for some time. It might explain the intensity and abrupt arrival of such weather, were Meg controlling one or more.”

“Elementals?” questions Sam. “That sounds like something from a fairy tale.”

Both Dean and Cas say nothing for a moment, just staring at each other, and Sam gets the feeling that he’s stepped in something he shouldn’t have. The staring continues for longer than the usual long stares between them, so Sam clears his throat.

“Uh, so if it is these elemental things, what does that mean?” he asks, trying to break through the strange vibe.

Cas blinks and looks away from Dean. “I know very little about them, just that they exist and are very old. And that you would need to control them with strong magic.”

“Do we need to call up Rowena?” asks Sam.

“No, that shouldn’t be necessary. I believe there were several books in the library with information about these beings.”

“Aaaaand, break.” says Dean, shoving the last of his bacon into his mouth. “You two nerds go read and I’ll clean up the breakfast dishes.”

Dean gets up and limps toward the sink. Sam and Cas exchange a worried glance, then head to the library.

\--

While Cas and Sam are searching for information, more bad news comes in. A strong wind storm had swept through Oklahoma and Arkansas. Although there hadn’t been any tornadoes, semis had been flipped on highways, trailer parks were decimated, and again, there were a couple of eyewitness reports of a large being in the wind.

“What the hell?” says Dean, taking a seat beside Sam at the library table. He sets his half-drunk beer too close to the books and it takes a look from Sam before he moves it away.

“I know. It’s gotta be the elemental things that Cas brought up. All the lore supports the idea.”

“How is Meg controlling them, though? Has she found a cadre of witches?”

“Hey, check out this book about an elemental in Brazil,” says Sam, shoving a large tome toward Dean. “It says that there’s some totem for an elemental that, when held by the right person, can force the elemental into servitude,” Sam offers.

“So, what. We find Meg and force her to give up the totems?” Dean takes a swig of his beer. “If we can even find her.”

“That seems like the logical next step.”

“Yeah, but how are we going to find Meg?”

“We could summon her,” suggests Sam.

“Uh, no.”

“We could, though. In the dungeon. Maybe she will have the totems with her, but if she doesn’t, then we could at least cut her off from them.”

“What if she has minor demons who are helping her and when we kidnap her, they have orders to unleash utter destruction?” asks Dean.

“So far these natural disasters haven’t caused any deaths. Which is surprising given how strong the weather has been,” muses Sam.

“And?”

“Maybe Meg is holding off on making things worse. I don’t know, maybe she’s just showing off the power she now wields as a way to send a message.”

“That sound like Meg to you?” asks Dean.

“Honestly, I’m not sure what she’s up to. Maybe this really is a way for her to try and regain Hell.”

“Then why isn’t all the drama happening down there instead of up here?” asks Dean.

“There’s got to be a pattern that explains everything. We just haven’t found it yet.”

“Cas looking up more stuff?”

“Yeah.” Sam decides to capitalize on the moment. “He’s been really worried about this…and about you.”

“Me? What for?”

“We both have noticed your leg. It still bothering you?”

Dean brushes him off. “Nah. Just a little stiff.”

“Maybe you should have Cas take another look now that it’s had some time to heal up.”

“It’s fine.” Dean begins peeling at the label on the beer bottle.

“It’s not healing, is it.”

Dean looks like he wants to continue denying things, then admits, “No. It’s not.”

“So Crowley was right. Damn, I really was hoping he had that part wrong.”

“Well, I’m still kicking, so at least it didn’t take me out all the way.”

“Yeah, but you’re compromised.”

Dean’s voice lowers, gets extra growly. “You think I’m compromised? We haven’t had any hunts to check on that, now have we? And you and Cas been talking, huh? Talking about poor ol’ Dean with his busted up leg.”

“I didn’t mean it like–”

Cas suddenly appears in the doorway. “There’s been another outbreak of fire. This time in forests in Ohio and Kentucky.”

“Then what’s our next move?”

“We have to risk summoning her,” says Sam.

“I don’t think that’s wise until we have a better idea of what she’s up to,” argues Dean.

“Cas, you’re the tie-breaker.”

Cas swallows. “I believe that we need more information.”

“Go on, read your books. I’m gonna go drive to the store and grab some supplies.”

Sam gives Cas a look. Cas turns. “I will accompany you.”

“Oh, you will, will you?”

“I’ve reached an impasse and require some time to consider what we have researched.”

Dean just rolls his eyes. “Fine, I leave in five.”

\---

Dean doesn’t notice they’re being followed until halfway through the grocery store.

“My six, two guys.”

Cas reaches up to grab something off the top shelf and surreptitiously glances under his arm. “They are demons.”

“Friends of Meg’s?”

“Difficult to determine.”

“Wanna set a trap?”

“Yes.”

“Follow me to baking.”

The demons don’t seem to be too keen on jumping them, so Dean and Cas discreetly grab salt and part ways, creating a salt circle around the neighboring aisles. Then, they wait for the demons to realize what they’ve done.

It only takes a couple of minutes. There’s several exclamations, accompanied by the sound of jars being smashed on the ground in frustration.

Satisfied, Dean and Cas quickly run through the check-out, keen to get back to the bunker without further incident.

But they find the Impala guarded by some unfriendlies.

“Shouldn’t have spent that extra time looking for Sam’s extra healthy bread,” griped Dean.

“They probably surrounded the Impala as soon as we went into the store. The others were likely sent to flush us out.”

Dean shrugs. “Still, more fun to blame Sam.”

One of the figures steps away from the car and they realize it’s Meg.

“So domestic. Shopping together.”

“Shut up, Meg. Care to explain whatever game you’re playing?”

Meg smirks. “Haven’t figured it out yet?”

“We know about the elementals,” Dean announces, “And we know how you’re controlling them.”

“Elementals?” Meg lifts an eyebrow. “Now there’s an interesting idea.”

Cas shifts uncertainly behind Dean, letting his angel blade fall from his sleeve. Dean similarly moves into a more defensive stance, not yet grabbing the pistol tucked into the back of his jeans, but just seconds away. His leg twinges at him, but he ignores the pain.

“Can’t say that’s what I’ve got up my sleeve though, sorry.”

Dean glances over at Cas. “She’s not lying,” Cas confirms.

“Well, damn. Thought we had this one figured out. Sam seemed so certain.”

“Poor little baby, so confused. You’re going to be so surprised when the big reveal happens.”

“Which will be…” prompts Dean.

Meg shrugs. “Whenever I feel like it. Haven’t quite gotten everything up and running yet, so I think I’ll hold off on telling you all my secrets until then. Wouldn’t want you coming in and making a mess of things per usual, now would we?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Pretty sure you’re dying inside to tell us just how clever you are,” taunts Dean.

“Hmm, that’s the difference between me and Crowley—he’s too obsessed with his own ego. I’m more interested in getting the job done.”

“Which is why he’s king of Hell and you’re just a minor player.”

Meg’s smirk turns a little feral. “That two-bit politician has no idea what I have planned for him when this all goes down.” She turns toward one of the demons to her right. “Remind me to make sure that whole spectacle is public.”

Dean takes the opportunity Meg offers and pulls his pistol out. “So, we going to have a party or what? The ice cream’s melting.”

“In this weather? Why don’t you stick it into that snow bank. We need to talk.”

“Yeah, no. Pretty sure we don’t have anything to chat about.”

Cas takes a step forward. “If you aren’t going to share your plan with us, why are you here, Meg?”

“Oh, Clarence. Always so concerned about your place in things. Let’s just say I have a special plan for you two, well, Sam too if he’s interested. But I’d rather you both be in top shape for that – can’t help but notice your leg’s a little weak there, Dean.”

“Wonder why, bitch.”

Meg chuckles. “Couldn’t help myself, sorry. I wanted to know if the myth was true. Looks like part of it is, though the rest of it remains to be seen.”

“What does that mean?” asks Cas.

“Aww, you haven’t found out what would cure Dean-o yet? It’s pretty simple, even you could do it.”

“Care to enlighten us?”

“Nah, think I’ll leave that for you to discover all on your own.” Meg steps closer. “For now, I need to ask you a question.”

“Which is?” prompts Dean, starting to get irritated.

“Hold your horses. You like this with all the girls?” She chuckles again, then adds, “And the boys?”

Dean swallows. How did she know about that? Or was she just messing with him per usual? He hopes his face doesn’t betray his mind.

Cas saves him from having to consider that further or think of something to say. “Your question?”

“I assume Crowley has you under some kind of deal to stop me. Otherwise Dean wouldn’t be standing here. You guys are definitely not smart enough to know that particular myth off hand.” Meg’s eyes go black. “I’m here to make a deal of my own.”

“Yes?” asks Cas impatiently.

“I want you to join forces with me. Things will be so much easier if we all just get along. This particular plan sees Crowley go down in a fireball. And I promise that you and anyone you choose will be protected.”

“No way.”

“Ugh, you’re such a misogynist, Dean. Crowley gets a pass to be an asshole because his bits dangle. But anytime a girl demon shows up it’s all, oh no, they’re trying to trick my brother or how dare you try to take my boyfriend away from me.”

Dean grits his teeth together. “You have to know we’d never join you.”

“Even if it meant you’d never have to hear from Hell again? Think about it – no more disturbances from demons, no more crossroads deals gone wrong, no more having to mingle with demons.”

“You seem extremely confident,” observes Cas. “What reassurance do we have that you’d be successful in any battle with Crowley?”

“Oh, I can guarantee that I’ll come out on top this time. I’ve got backup he can’t even imagine.”

“Gonna need a lot more than your word, Meg,” points out Dean. “We don’t trust Crowley blindly, so why would we do that same with you?”

“Did you trust him blindly with the potion that saved your life?”

And she’s got them there. They definitely did just give Crowley a pass on that. But Dean was dying, and it wasn’t like the potion could have made that worse if it had ended up being a dud or for the wrong thing.

Cas steps forward again, and the demons around Meg shift nervously. “We need more information. Who is your backup?”

“Nuh uh. Not gonna give the goose away just yet. I’m here to gauge your interest before I move to phase two. You’re gonna love phase two.”

“Then I’d say interest is low and you need to be moving on,” says Dean.

Meg tuts him. “Missing out on a lifetime opportunity here. A real chance to do something impactful with your puny life.”

“Dean already does impactful things with his life. There is no deal without information.”

“Clarence, I’m hurt. You and I had such a good thing going and now you’ve thrown your lot completely in with these mud monkeys?”

“I trust Dean and Sam with my life. I trust you with only some things.”

Meg actually does look hurt. “In that case, going once, going twice, going going…” She pauses, then says, “Gone. Well, just remember I gave you a chance to join in and protect everyone you care about from what happens next. I was much more manganous than Crowley will ever be. You’ll realize soon just how much of a mistake you’ve made.”

She and the rest of the demons disappear abruptly. Dean spends a moment checking around to make sure they’re really gone before turning to Cas who is still holding his angel blade out. “What the hell was that all about?”

Cas frowns. “Unclear. Worse, we weren’t able to get any new information about this situation. The only thing we know is that we aren’t facing elementals.”

“If we can even trust that. We could have already cracked things and she’s just trying to throw us off the scent.”

“No, Dean. I know Meg well,” and at this admission, Dean cringes inside and wishes Meg were back here so he could shoot her. “And I can reliably tell when she is telling a falsehood. She was not when she told us this did not have to do with elementals. I believe we are facing something else now, but what, I have no idea.”

“Well, we had better get back to the bunker. The ice cream is actually melting and I don’t want it messing up Baby’s interior.”

\---

Dean briefs Sam on the Meg situation while Cas attempts to put away the groceries. He mostly knows where the peanut butter and jelly go from his previous times when eating human food was necessary, and Dean’s comments about the ice cream made him certain that it belongs in the freezer. Otherwise, he is at a bit of a loss about the other things, so he merely places them all on the counters. Dean or Sam would know where things go.

He retreats to his room. When he is certain that he will not be interrupted, he pulls a book from underneath his mattress and runs a hand over the cover. “The Collected Fables, Fairy Tales, and Folklore of the World”’s title glints at him, embossed in gold and bound in leather. He opens to one of his favorite fables and begins reading, trying to understand where he went wrong with his stories to Dean earlier. Perhaps he had been too metaphorical. Or perhaps Dean had understood what Cas was trying to say and was embarrassed for him. There were too many possibilities and variables in this case. Clearly it required more reading.

A few hours and no more clarity later, Cas emerges from his room and wanders down toward the library. The compendium had been unclear about how to approach someone who was not receptive to the message you were attempting to share with them via an altered fairy tale, so Cas decides to look through some of the other bunker’s books on mythology to get a sense of what to do next.

He finds Sam surrounded by a pile of books, his hair in disarray. A quick check of the clock makes Cas realize that it is past the traditional time for humans to eat lunch and it was likely Sam had skipped in favor of trying to solve the riddle of Meg’s plan.

“Sam, do you require sustenance?”

Sam looks up from the book in front of him. “Uh, yeah, probably should.”

“Have you found anything new?”

Sam sighs. “No. And from what Dean said, it doesn’t sound like we were on the right track with the elementals. Which is okay, but it does mean I need to go back through these books on Greek mythology. Something tells me that the bow was a hint as to what Meg is planning next, or maybe even about her backup.”

“That is a wise direction to pursue. She is behaving quite erratically, more so than usual, so I believe it would be wise to consider new avenues.”

“That’s true, you know her better than Dean or I. Maybe there was something about what she said that struck you as funny? Dean didn’t seem to think there was anything odd, but this whole situation is weird.”

“Perhaps we could continue this conversation while you obtain lunch?”

Sam smiles. “Good idea, let’s go to the kitchen.”

Cas follows Sam into the kitchen and watches while he puts away the rest of the groceries and then makes a sandwich. “I can’t say there was anything about what she said that stood out to me. Although, Meg did have at least a dozen demons with her, which was unusual. She usually works mostly alone. Perhaps that does mean there is some truth to her assertion that she is stronger and better-supported than in the past.”

“Dean said she was pretty confident. Not that Meg isn’t usually confident.”

“She has caused a great deal of destruction to the country already. She will probably accelerate or increase the magnitude of these attacks soon.”

“But the figures people have seen—what could those possibly be? It’s too bad we don’t have any photographic evidence to examine.” No photos or video had surfaced on the internet yet—apparently the figures would be there one moment and then gone the next.

“Does that mean you intend to find the next disaster and travel there?”

Sam lets out a big sigh. “At this point, that does sound like the best option to get eyes on this phenomenon. The wind storm was pretty close by, but it has died down. The only disasters that are currently ongoing and somewhat stable are the hurricane and the volcanoes. I think maybe we should try the hurricane first since it’s closer.”

“Shall I inform Dean?”

“Yeah. I’ll get some books together and pack a bag. As long as Dean’s on board, let’s plan to head out in an hour.”

\---

Cas finds Dean in his room, listening to music with his overlarge headphones. Dean had once put them on Cas’ ears, but Cas hadn’t seen the advantage to them over just listening to music through the Impala’s speakers or a radio. Perhaps he just wasn’t as into music as Dean.

“Dean?”

One of Dean’s eyes opens. “What’s up, Cas?”

“Sam thinks it would be wise to travel to one of the natural disasters to attempt to get a glimpse of the creature within to better inform our research. He has recommended the hurricane due to its proximity and seeming permanence.”

Dean grunts and pushes himself up to sitting. “We leavin’ in an hour?”

“Yes, so long as you agree with the plan.”

“Yeah, that’s probably the best idea given how little Meg gave up. And the next thing could land on top of us or another major city, so it’s probably a good idea to take the fight to whatever these things are. Sam have any ideas for supplies?”

“Not that I heard, but you might want to consult with him. He is currently packing.”

Dean nods, then pulls his headphones off. “Meet you in an hour, then.”


	3. Chapter 3

The ride to Texas is uneventful. After a certain point, it starts raining steadily, and most of the traffic is going in the opposite direction. Dean turns up the stereo when the wind and rain begins to get too loud.

“How close do we have to be to see something?” asks Dean.

Sam double-checks the reports. “Most of the people said they were right next to the storm or fire.”

“Think we’ll have to go right up to the eye of this thing? Not sure Baby can handle that.”

“I suppose we can get out periodically and check.”

At a gas station in Frankston they exit the Impala and stand looking toward the center of the hurricane. After about five minutes of getting soaked and trying to stare into the wind, Dean announces, “Okay, we look like idiots. Let’s get back in and drive closer.”

The wind continues picking up, battering the Impala, forcing Dean to wrestle with the steering wheel and Sam to shout out road hazards as they fly toward them. Cas leans between the two seats and observes, his brow creased and expression grim.

They make it as far as Trinity before Dean pulls over. “Baby’s not gonna take much more of this. She’ll flood and then we’ll be stuck. Let’s try again.”

This time they give it fifteen minutes before they are soaked through and admit defeat. They all get back into the car and Sam hands out towels.

“Well? That didn’t work.”

“Let’s stay here for just a little while longer. We can take turns looking through the windshield to see if anything appears.”

A crack of lightning lights up the sky and all three of them immediately look around. But nothing big and lurking appears, so they go back to drying off.

“I guess we could do that. I’m going to keep looking in these books. Nothing is popping out, but I guess it can’t hurt to look again.”

Dean pulls out his phone. “I’ll look on here. Not that that’s helped us much before. You’re on first watch, Cas.”

Several hours, some beer and pretzels, and a couple more attempts to see something out in the rain, and it grows dark outside. Dean huffs in frustration. “Guess we’re going to have to find lodging for the night. Not really a fan of three of us trying to sleep in Baby. I’ll bet we get a hurricane discount if we can find some place open.”

He guides the Impala onto the highway and starts heading toward the nearest populated town. Sam and Cas continue looking out the windows, but despite copious amounts of lightning, nothing is illuminated.

The Athens Lodge’s parking lot is virtually empty, but the vacancy sign is lit, so they decide to give it a try. The manager is a downcast lady who looks as drenched as they feel.

“Two rooms?”

“No, we’ll take one.”

Cas won’t sleep, will spend the entire evening with his nose plastered to the window waiting for lightning to illuminate the sky and hopefully bring with it the monster.

“You fleeing the hurricane?”

“No, just in the area for work and now heading home.”

“Well, hopefully home isn’t east of here.”

“Why?” asks Sam curiously.

“Haven’t you heard about the second hurricane?”

This perks Cas’ ears up. “Where is it?”

“Strangest thing—it did just like this one, appeared out of nowhere. It’s hanging out on the Florida-Georgia coast. Not a Category 4, only a Category 3, but it’s already beating up the coast pretty badly. Fortunately this one is fading. Should be only a Category 2 by tomorrow afternoon.”

Sam, Dean, and Cas exchange looks, then pay for the room.

Once they’re in the rundown room, Dean says what’s on their minds. “What if the thing we are looking for has left here and that’s why this storm is fading and this new one has started?”

“Have any of the other natural disasters repeated themselves elsewhere yet?” asks Cas.

Sam pulls out his phone and does a quick check. “There’s another volcano going active—Alaska this time. No fires or wind storms, though.”

“Maybe whatever these creatures are, they are highly mobile, but only can become visible when they are actively causing their natural disaster,” hypothesizes Cas.

Dean nods as he sits down on the rickety bed. “From what everyone’s said, these things are massive. So, they’re invisible and don’t cause any destruction until they start a natural disaster which causes all kinds of destruction?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” says Sam, shrugging. “This is weird. You’re sure you have no idea what these are, Cas? Some kind of biblical creatures that should have showed up during the apocalypse, but Meg has somehow woken up now?”

Cas shakes his head. “No, nothing I know of from Heaven or Hell can do what these beings are doing. Truly, elementals seemed like the obvious answer. They are mostly invisible and highly attuned to the natural elements, to the point where they are capable of causing such massive changes in the weather.”

“Well, let’s try going east tomorrow. Maybe it’ll still be there.” Sam taps on his phone. “We can be there in fourteen hours.”

“Will it still be there, though? Maybe we should leave now,” says Dean.

“Let me check something.” Sam spends another few moments tapping. “Okay, so get this—it looks like people saw the creatures within the first 24 hours of them appearing. The hurricane showed up only a couple hours ago in Savannah, GA, so we can get about five hours of shut eye and then head out. That’ll give us a few hours to search once we get there, provided that we can get close enough.”

“Baby can handle a Category 3, surely. I don’t think we should head for the eye or anything.”

“We shouldn’t have to. One of the sightings came from Beaumont, about 50 miles from the eye. We can get that close without ruining the Impala.”

“I will maintain my vigil at the window tonight just in case our theory is incorrect,” says Cas, moving toward the window.

“Good idea,” says Dean. “Okay, I get first dibs on the shower. Sam, you find us some pizza to order in.”

\---

The storm to the east grows to a Category 5 overnight. Sam says this probably means the creature is still there, but it does mean it’ll be harder to get close enough to see it.

Just like on their way to Texas, most of the traffic is going the other way as they get closer to the coast. Sam stays glued to his phone the whole drive, updating them on the weather situation and generally keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. Dean doesn’t trust that Meg won’t just show up at the drop of a hat.

They are just outside Montgomery, Alabama when Sam lets out a shout.

Dean glares and fights to keep the Impala on the road. “What the hell!”

“Someone got video!”

They pull over and crowd around Sam’s phone. The video quality is poor and it’s clearly been taken from a cell phone, but between one flash of lightning and the next, there is suddenly a hulking creature moving across the view of the screen. The camera’s holder must have been just trying to take some footage of the storm, because they scream and drop their phone, and that’s the end of the video.

Sam rewinds and then freezes it. A misty shape looms, indefinable but taller than any skyscraper, wide and dark. They cannot make out any distinctive features, just that it’s large and an indefinable feeling of dread settles over all of them. Any joviality about their trip vaporizes.

“That’s some Cloverfield shit,” mutters Dean.

“It’s old magic.”

“What makes you say that, Cas?” asks Sam.

“It’s of the old gods. I can’t tell what it is, only that it doesn’t belong to our pantheon. We need to be consulting some of the old gods. Or perhaps Rowena.”

Dean makes a disgusted noise. “I don’t want to have to call her.”

“We may not have a choice. You can always take the opportunity to thank her for saving you, you know,” teases Sam.

“Ah, no. I’d rather not. She gets handsy when she thinks she’s got one over on you.”

“How do you know it’s old magic, though, Cas?”

“I can perceive things beyond your limited visual perspective due to the many eyes of my true form. This creature is one that walked the Earth eons before my father finally gained attention from his followers.”

“That’s such a strange thing to hear. Because it always seemed like Chuck was the beginning of everything,” says Sam.

“Certainly my father was the creator of most things, but there were others with the power to create and destroy. Lesser gods, such as those of the Greek and Roman pantheons.”

“And Chuck didn’t have a problem with people worshiping them instead of him?” asks Dean.

“That was around the time of the great unrest in heaven, so it was likely not of utmost importance to him. Besides, the lesser gods fell from prominence once my father took back over and Lucifer had fallen.”

“So these are possibly from the Greeks? What do we know of Greek mythology that looks like that?” asks Sam.

They peer down at Sam’s phone again.

“Can’t say I’m super up on my Greek mythology at the moment,” admits Dean. “Was a little preoccupied with learning all about angels and demons.”

“This creature predates the Greeks, but given Meg’s recent weapon acquisition, perhaps it was still present during the Greek empires. I was unfortunately preoccupied during that time with the battle for heaven and hell, so I do not recognize it. Sam?”

Sam shakes his head. “No, not sure. I’ll need to do some more looking. So, do we want to keep heading toward it? This screenshot might be the best we get.”

Dean groans. “You’re probably right. All this driving for nothing.”

The wind outside picks up a little. Dean rubs a hand over his face. “Wanna switch drivers?” asks Sam.

“Yeah. Probably a good idea.”

They shuffle around and Dean lays down in the back so that he can get some rest and Cas sits in the front, trying to find something in Sam’s lore books that can identify the menace in the storm.

A couple of hours down the road, Dean wakes up from his snooze. He immediately picks up on the tense air in the car. “What’s wrong?”

And then he hears it, the sound of wind battering the sides of the Impala, stronger than before.

“Why are we still heading toward the storm? Thought we were going home.”

“We are.”

“Then why—” Dean stops talking as he sits up. The road in front of them is virtually whited out with snow flurries. Flurries that are whipping past the Impala at ridiculous speed.

“How long has it been like this?”

“Just shortly after you fell asleep it began,” answers Cas.

“Well, snow ain’t unusual in March.”

“In Alabama? After it was almost 60 this morning?” says Sam.

“Cold weather front came down?” tries Dean hopefully, though he remembers the weather report from earlier had called for a warm, sunny day, not this blizzard. “Think it’s another of the not-elementals?”

“That would certainly make sense,” pipes up Cas. “Although it’s unfortunate it didn’t manifest a drought. I’ve doubts about this vehicle’s ability to navigate such large quantities of precipitation.”

“Hey, Baby will handle just fine,” says Dean, though he’s actually not so sure about that.

They struggle on, the Impala fishtailing every now and then, Sam dropping their speed more and more until they are practically crawling on the interstate.

“No way this is natural,” Dean mutters.

“There’s a sign for a rest stop, should we try for that? I haven’t seen anything lately for lodging and it could be a while before we find somewhere,” says Sam.

“Lemme check.” Dean pulls out his cell. “Yeah, nothing for another twenty miles. At the rate we’re going, that’s going to take another hour at least, and I don’t like our odds.”

“Gonna be a cold one,” says Sam, looking at Dean uncertainly in the rearview mirror. “I didn’t pack for extreme cold.”

“Yeah, me either. Guess we’ll just have to make a puppy pile back here and use whatever blankets we’ve got in the trunk.”

Sam huffs a laugh. “We gonna fit?”

“You and me, yeah, barely. You’ll have to stay in the front Cas. No way we all can jam in back here, and you don’t need the sleep.”

Sam manages to get them to the rest area which is full up with trucks and a few other passenger vehicles who had decided that continuing on the road would be unwise. They find a spot close to the restrooms, then go take leaks while Cas pulls out the blankets to make them a little nest in the backseat. They munch on some snacks they’d brought with them from the bunker, then sit in the back side by side, looking for more information about the creatures and the potential for this weather to clear.

“Not looking so good, is it?” says Sam with a grimace.

“This front is pretty big. It stretches all the way from Arizona to Alabama. They’re calling for accumulations of up to two feet. No way the southern states have the infrastructure and equipment to plow the main roads. We might be stuck here for a while.”

“I’m not going to eat vending machine food. Just because you live on the stuff doesn’t mean all of us do,” says Sam.

“There’s some rabbit stuff in the other bag. I’m certainly not touching it.”

“You okay up there, Cas? I know you don’t usually get cold, but this could be a stretch.”

“I have Sam’s lore books to occupy my time. And failing that, I can continue searching on my phone. Although powering them might become a problem. Perhaps we should consider moving into the main structure of this rest stop.”

“If it gets too cold, we will. I’m still hopeful this will disappear as fast as the fires and the windstorm earlier,” says Dean.

“It could be like the hurricane and the volcanoes, though,” warns Sam.

“Shut up. I’m trying this optimism thing,” replies Dean.

Sam snorts.

\--

Cas gazes out of the window. Sam and Dean have been asleep for a couple of hours, and neither have begun shivering yet, despite the external temperature continuing to drop. The snow accumulation has continued, and it appears to be nearly halfway up the Impala’s tires. Cas takes this as a bad sign. They might be stranded here for some time. Fortunately, there is light from a large streetlight nearby, and he spends his time looking through the books Sam brought. But there are no clues, no leads he can discern. Meg has clearly tapped into an area of knowledge he is significantly lacking in. How frustrating.

He closes the book he’s been leafing through and turns to look at the pile of Winchesters in the back. Dean is closest to him, his face just visible from under the thick wool blanket he’s tucked around himself. Cas wishes momentarily that he could warm them both with a wave of his hand, like he once could.

Telling Dean those stories several days ago had reminded Cas of all he’d lost. Of all he’d once been. Of what he wanted. And does he want so much.

He looks out the window and watches the snow falling. It’s slowed some, but Cas suspects that there will be another few inches by the time that Sam and Dean wake up. He turns the key enough to flip on the wipers to check on the restroom and finds the path still mostly visible. At least Sam and Dean will be able to visit the facilities when they wake without too much trouble.

Cas turns back to his phone which is nearly out of power. There continue to be no results for the Lernaean bow myth despite his best search attempts, which is frustrating. He cannot yet confirm the small bit he thinks is true. That he hopes isn’t true, because if it is...

There’s a sudden glint of light in the far distance. Cas looks up and narrows his eyes. It comes again, a little closer. Squinting against the reflection of the streetlight on the snow, Cas scoots across the bench seat and tries to make out whatever this thing is that seems to be approaching.

The wind picks up again, swirling the snow in spirals, buffeting the Impala slightly. Cas frowns as the glint appears again, closer still. What is it?

And then the wind  _ howls _ . Except, Cas realizes abruptly, the wind isn’t making that noise, it’s whatever is outside the car. Right outside the car. For a giant leg has materialized right alongside the Impala. It’s white and jagged and icy and massive, unlike anything Cas has ever seen. It’s as if a piece of glacier has come to life.

And then there’s a hand pressing down on the snow in front of the car, crushing the snow without any effort. Cas holds his breath, watching as the creature bends over and over and over, until a horrifying face, a face he suddenly recognizes, looks into the Impala. It looks directly at him, the window of the Impala providing the only barrier between him and the screaming howl of the creature, it’s maw open wide, jagged icicles where teeth would be in a normal face, dark, hollow sockets of deep-blue ice where eyes should be, and all the while the creature keeps howling, keeps looking at Cas who is frozen in terror. 

It couldn’t be, they were trapped, had been for eons. If Meg had found a way to release them, there was no way they could possibly— 

“What the fuck?!” comes a furious whisper from the back. Dean’s awake.

The creature’s head snaps toward the back of the Impala, then lets out a new howl of icy wind and death and Cas’ stomach flips. The hand comes up off the snow in front of the car and Cas knows he only has seconds to act before it comes down on the top of the Impala. And from the jagged bits of ice that form talons, there’s no way the roof will survive a hit. Or them.

Cas slides across the bench seat, turns over the key and jams the Impala into reverse. It flies out from underneath the creature, just in time for a massive hand to slam down where the Impala once sat, shaking the ground slightly.

Baby fishtails for a moment, almost going into a skid before Cas gets her under control. He can hear Dean swearing behind him, probably furious that Cas is the one driving his precious automobile during this crisis and not him, but there’s no time to switch, no time to think, no time to do anything but slam on the accelerator and hope against all hopes that they can escape this monster, this beast.

Cas manages to guide the car onto the on-ramp, and then they’re on the highway which is barely visible in the dark. Huge impacts sound behind them and Cas knows they probably won’t be able to outrun this creature, especially given the poor condition of the road ahead of them.

“It’s coming up fast, you gotta push down on the accelerator,” Dean almost yells.

“If he does, we might spin out into a ditch,” argues Sam.

“Either way, we’re dead. I’d rather go down going fighting, don’t you think?”

Sam huffs a gust of air, probably fear. Cas continues trying to keep the Impala on the road, the thumping behind them getting louder and louder until Cas can see the creature’s footfalls are only feet away from the rear bumper of the Impala.

“None of the other reports said the things attacked, they just lurked. Why is it coming after us?”

“Meg probably sicced it on us, don’t you think? Or Cas did something to piss it off,” Dean says, still half-yelling.

“I did no such thing. It came directly for us, like it knew where to find us. I suspect that Meg did give it instructions,” retorts Cas, annoyed.

“Oh great, at least we solved that mystery. Just in time to get mashed by the giant frosty the snowman.”

“More like the Abominable snowman,” says Sam.

Dean pulls out his gun and rolls down the window. “Keep as straight as you can, Cas,” he says, then fires.

The howling intensifies.

“Oh great, you just made it mad,” says Sam.

“Human weapons will have no effect upon a creature such as this,” yells Cas over the sound of the creature and the wind and snow now swirling around the interior of the Impala.

“What about a grenade?”

“Why, got one in your pocket, Dean?” asks Sam, exasperated.

“No, but give me a fucking second and I can get to the trunk.” Dean rips part of the backseat away and starts clawing at a plate covered in sigils. “Made this extra entry in case I was ever locked in the back and needed a weapon.”

He pries open the plate and thrusts his hand into the trunk.

Meanwhile, Cas tries to keep straight on a very not straight stretch of road. That seems to be working in their favor though, because the creature is having trouble keeping up with the Impala as it swerves from side to side, its massive hand coming up just short of where the Impala once was each time it attempts to flatten them. The howling gets worse and worse, though, and before long, they are fighting the urge to slam their hands over their ears.

Sam begins spraying the creature with shotgun shells from a rifle Dean pulls out of the back for a lack of something better to do. Dean continues desperately clawing through the trunk’s contents, pulling out thing after thing that isn’t a grenade.

“We have too much shit back here!”

“I keep telling you that, but you keep adding shit!”

“What the hell!” Dean pulls another container of holy water out and starts swearing up a storm when an icy hand just barely misses the Impala. “Keep weaving, Cas!”

“I am attempting to drive in a serpentine manner, but the road is not allowing such maneuvers,” snaps Cas.

“Well, keep trying.” Dean pulls out another rosary. “Gah! I know we have one. I put it in there last month.”

“Any ideas for when the grenade fails?”

“Way to be an optimist there!” shouts Dean as the creature howls anew. “I think there’s a rocket launcher somewhere in here, too.”

“We are not using that! The concussive power alone would crush us.”

“Then start looking for better ideas!”

Cas tries to avoid a skid, but suddenly the Impala is slipping out of control and he is helpless to stop it. A triumphant shout comes from the back—Dean holds the grenade aloft. “Got it! Now, give me a good sight on this thing, Cas.”

“Uh, that might be a problem,” yells Sam as the Impala starts to spin and all forward momentum slows.

The creature roars in triumph. Dean and Sam exchange a look. “Well, not much choice, huh?” Then, Dean pulls the pin, kisses the grenade for luck, and pauses for a moment, trying to gauge the perfect moment to release their weapon.

With a yell, Dean throws the grenade out the window. All three of the car’s occupants try to follow its motion and not get too dizzy as the Impala continues to spin.

Dean’s aim is good. The grenade lands in the creature’s chest and for a moment, there is silence as the creature stops howling and looks down at the tiny explosive embedded in the ice that makes up the front of its body. Then it lunges at them.

“Oh shit!” exclaims Dean as the grenade goes from being ten feet away to two, the creature’s icy fingers scraping the Impala’s roof as it reaches for them.

Then the world goes white and the Impala finishes spinning out, and the last thing Cas remembers is Dean being thrown into the front seat and Sam hitting the roof hard.

\---

Dean wakes up to Cas against him, realizes he’s wrapped around him. How did they get like this? Does it really matter? He’s finally in Cas’ arms, something long overdue. This is quite the dream, he thinks, a little PG compared to his usual dreams about Cas, but cuddling works too.

He settles back against Cas and marvels at how warm he is. God, it would be amazing to wake up to this always, to head to bed every night with the knowledge that he’d have this kind of comfort waiting for him when he woke in the morning. Cas’ arms are even firmer around him than he usually dreams, and he even smells more like Cas than usual. Plus there’s the smell of Baby in his nose, which means that earlier in the dream there’s a good chance they got busy in her, and if that doesn’t just make Dean the happiest he’s ever been, then he doesn’t know what would.

And then a slight ringing hits his ears and Dean realizes that this isn’t a dream at all. He’s in the Impala’s front seat, wrapped around Cas. The last thing he remembers is throwing the grenade, the creature lunging at them, then whiteness.

He turns his head to look to see if the creature is about to eviscerate them, but can’t see past Cas’ body, sprawled atop him. He starts to carefully extract himself, but then realizes that there are a pair of very blue eyes staring at him, eyes that he’s sure weren’t open just a moment ago.

Dean’s not sure how long they stare at each other until Sam makes a noise. And then it’s like they’ve both been burnt, how fast they push apart.

Dean practically launches himself out of the Impala. But where he expects to fall into a large snowbank, instead it’s incredibly damp grass. He blinks in bewilderment, the sky full of stars and a hopeful crescent of moon. There’s no sign of the blizzard, no indication they were chased by a massive ice monster. In fact, the night is practically balmy.

“Dean?”

Dean looks back at the Impala and finds Sam’s head peeking through the door, a nasty bit of blood caking the side of his face.

“You okay there, Sammy?”

Sam grimaces. “Been better. But definitely still alive.”

“Yeah, me too. Where’d the colossal glacier monster go? Did we even run into one?” A quick glance at the Impala’s roof verifies that their adventure was real – there are long scratches spanning the entire length of it. “Hell no, you did not just fuck up my car!”

Cas and Sam exit the Impala to see the damage, also pausing to look around in bewilderment.

“Looks like you blasted it with that grenade,” says Sam. “And got part of the Impala with it.

“What?!” Dean hurries around to the opposite side and finds a significant dent in the back passenger-side door, as well as what looks like hail damage at first glance.

“It’s either destroyed, wounded, or discorporated,” says Cas in a grave tone of voice. “I don’t think you destroyed it, though.”

“Why not? I don’t see ol’ Frosty showin’ his face around here anymore.”

Cas’ voice becomes even graver. “Because what we just battled was no ordinary creature. It’s something I had hoped never to lay eyes upon. The stories about these creatures even made angels tremble.”

“What was it, Cas?” asks Sam. “What was the thing that almost just killed us?”

“A Titan.”


	4. Chapter 4

They limp home, Dean swearing up and down the whole way about the state of the Impala, Sam reading up on Titans on his phone while Cas generally just sits in the back quietly.

“A Titan? How can they be real?”

“We dealt with Prometheus a while back and he was a Titan, right?”

Sam gives Dean a disbelieving look.

“What, I read. Sometimes.”

“Unfortunately, Prometheus was a minor Titan. The ones that Meg has apparently summoned are quite powerful,” advises Cas. “I’m still not certain how we escaped alive.”

“Because I blew the sucker to high hell,” says Dean, navigating the Impala around a truck. “‘Course, that fucker had to come at us after I threw the grenade and get Baby all fucked up.”

Sam just shakes his head a little. “I think Cas is right—these guys are incredibly powerful. Even the original Greek pantheon had a hard time putting them down.”

“Down where?”

“According to this article, most of the Titans were locked up in Tartarus by the Olympic Gods after Zeus dethroned Cronus, his father, during the Titanomachy, the great war between the Titans and Olympians. They’re guarded by the Hecatoncheires, three one-hundred armed and legged guys. Meg managed to get past them?”

“Well, she has that bow. Maybe she used it on them,” guesses Dean.

“Do gods get hurt by mortal weapons? Even ones with magic?”

“Not usually,” answers Cas. “But the bow may hold great power depending on its origins.”

Sam frowns. “Then how’d she get them out?”

“Beats me,” says Dean. “More importantly, did she send that one after us? And how is she controlling them? And how can we break that control?”

“I don’t know that I’m going to be able to find answers to those questions in the library or online. Got any ideas, Cas?” asks Sam.

“Crowley clearly knew this was coming. He even seemed gleeful that we would be handling this issue instead of him.”

“Think Meg’s using the Titans to help her make another bid for the chair downstairs?” guesses Sam.

“They seem to be mainly focused on making life hell here right now. Maybe she doesn’t have as much control as we think.” Dean looks thoughtful for a moment. “Or she’s waiting for something else.”

“It’s all well and good to speculate like this, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’re still pretty much in the dark. And that this is sorta above our paygrade. Plus, how can we take out so many different Titans, spread all over the continent?”

“I think going after Meg is going to be the key,” declares Dean.

“Even though we’re not sure how much control she has? Maybe her tentative control is the only thing keeping them from really going hog wild on all of us,” says Sam.

“So we need to call in an expert.”

“On Titans? Or on Meg?” asks Sam.

“Maybe both. Anyone got any ideas?” asks Dean.

Silence reigns for the next couple of miles.

Then, Dean pipes up. “What about that Xena chick?”

“Artemis?”

“Yeah, she sorta joined our side against Zeus.”

“And how exactly do we get in touch with a Greek god?”

Cas leans forward. “I know how.”

“Okay, so, that sounds like a plan. Get Katniss down here to give us some intel and maybe advice on how to stop these Titans. And if she has any ideas about Meg,then that’ll just be icing on the cake.”

\---

“Let’s at least get some food in ourselves and let me have a look at Baby before we do any summoning,” says Dean the moment they pull into the bunker’s garage.

“I’m ok with the food, but the Impala’s pretty busted up, Dean. Can’t it wait until after we figure out if this plan has any legs?” asks Sam.

“No, it can’t. You know how important it is for us to have functioning wheels, especially right now. I have no idea if she took on more than just cosmetic damage. She may have gotten us home, but there could be more serious problems that are just waiting to strand us in the middle of nowhere the next time we take her out.”

Sam puffs up, clearly ready to argue that they have plenty of other cars in the garage, but Cas interjects.

“It will take some time to prepare the wards and protective sigils to keep Artemis from harming us should she attempt such a thing. There will be time for food and checking on vehicles while I do that.”

Dean gives Sam a look that says “See, plenty of time to do important things” before disappearing toward the garage. Sam sighs and heads toward the kitchen.

Cas watches the brothers walk their separate ways. Dean has been avoiding looking at him ever since they returned to consciousness together in the front seat of the Impala. Perhaps he was upset with him for driving the car. After all, Dean has never once allowed Cas to drive the precious Impala, despite Cas asking a few times in the past. So clearly he is upset that Cas was the one trying to flee the Titan and not him. Perhaps he even blames Cas for the fact that the Titan managed to cause damage to his vehicle. Yes, that seems the most likely explanation. Dean is fairly protective of the Impala and probably finds Cas’ mistakes to be unbearable, and that is why he is not looking at him.

Satisfied with his answer, Cas goes to the hallway storage closet for the necessary supplies. With a large chunk of graphite he meticulously draws the sigils and symbols they will need to keep Artemis from immediately blasting them all back to atoms, then adds a couple of improvised pieces he learned from watching Rowena. Then he sets up the small altar with some items he knows Artemis will find pleasing, including one of his own feathers from the box he keeps in the room Dean and Sam have given him in the bunker. It might be a risk to give an angel feather to a deity, but they really need Artemis to help them, so it seems a necessary sacrifice.

Cas draws a large circle around the area with the symbols and altar. It takes up most of the floor space in the library, the tables pushed to the sides to make room. Sam wanders in with a sandwich in hand and takes stock of the new addition to the room.

“What’s that one?” he asks.

Cas sees him pointing at one of the Rowena additions. “It either keeps whoever is in the circle contained or keeps them from turning us into frogs. Rowena was vague but I thought it useful.”

Sam’s eyebrows raise. Then he notices the small altar. “What you got on there?”

“Items from the bunker’s stocks. A fruit from the tree of life, dragon bone, and the arrow Dean was shot with.”

“Why that stuff?” asks Sam.

“Artemis is the goddess of nature and the hunt. I thought it wise to present her with items appropriate to her purview.”

“And the feather?”

“An enticement.”

Sam doesn’t pursue the matter any further, just sits down on the perimeter and eats his sandwich thoughtfully.

Dean joins them a few minutes later.

“We ready to go?” he asks.

Cas nods once. “I’ve constructed an appropriate circle and the protection spells within should keep us all safe. I cannot guarantee that she will be willing to help us, however.”

“It’s still worth a try. Thanks for getting everything set up, Cas,” says Sam, finishing off his sandwich.

“Should we have some weapons available in case everything goes south?”

“I think it best if we do not. She may decline to assist us if we appear threatening.”

“Yeah, well last time she was the one getting all threatening. She probably would have tried to off one of us if we hadn’t been armed.”

“The protection circle should provide enough safety. Besides, the pistol you keep under the table is over there, well within easy reach.”

Dean seems to find that acceptable, so Cas begins the process. He burns incense and everything goes quiet, even the background hum of the bunker seems somehow muted when he begins speaking Ancient Greek. Dean goes from interested to bored in about twenty seconds, but Sam hangs on to every word.

With a final spoken word, Cas falls silent.

“Well?”

“We must now wait. She will either deign to appear or she will not. I have spoken the old prayers and explained some of our situation. Whether or not it will entice her to appear is unknown.”

Dean huffs in frustration. “I hate when we have to appeal to their good sides.”

They wait another ten minutes in relative silence. Then Dean pushes himself up from where he was leaning against the table and makes a frustrated noise. “If she isn’t going to bother—”

Whatever else he was going to say is cut off by all the lights suddenly extinguishing in the bunker. The air feels expectant. Then a series of candles Cas had set by the altar light, and in the center of the circle stands Artemis.

She’s mostly as Dean and Sam remember her. She’s still in the form of a brown-eyed, brown-haired woman in her mid-twenties. Her signature bow is slung over her shoulder and a quiver of silver arrows are alongside it. But last time she had been dressed in black leather. Now she wears a flowing gown in the softest shades of gray, one shoulder bare, cinched in around the waist by a simple fabric sash. She somehow looks more intimidating this way, more ethereal and unreachable. Before she’d resembled Katniss in leather. Now she looked every bit the part of a Greek goddess.

“Who has called for me in the old tongue?”

Her voice is quiet but measured, like she is withholding anger but also intrigued.

Cas steps forward. “I did.”

“An angel? How odd.”

Artemis glances around, dismissively recognizing Sam and Dean, then catches sight of the small altar.

She sniffs. “Not really a generous offering. Even the poorest peasants once did better. Although...” She crouches down, touches the arrow briefly, then picks up the feather. “Now this I can work with.”

Cas can feel Dean’s gaze boring into the side of his head.

He ignores it in favor of reclaiming Artemis’ attention. “That’s mine. I offer it to you in good faith and in hopes that you will be receptive to our request.”

“Yes, you mentioned needing information. And assistance if at all possible.”

Her eyes flick between the room’s occupants, finally settling on Dean. “And you, you are injured.”

Dean swallows. Nothing like a goddess to lay you bare. “I’m fine.”

“You’re really not. That wound is festering and spreading, and it will eventually kill you.”

Sam and Cas both stand up straighter. Crowley hadn’t mentioned that. Perhaps he was saving it for a later bargaining chip? Either way, that’s news to them and definitely a problem.

“I could take care of it for you. For a price of course.”

“Not interested,” says Dean dismissively. “We’re here because we need information from you.”

“Yes, you mentioned that. What incentive do I have to help?”

“The Titans have escaped. Isn’t that of concern for you?” asks Sam.

Artemis looks at them with an uncaring expression from under her brow. “No.”

“No? That’s it?”

“I have no incentive to intervene. The only Titan I had any connection to is dead, by my hand.”

“Zeus was responsible for Prometheus’ death, not you.”

Artemis shakes her head. “It was my arrow fired by me from my bow. I bear responsibility.”

“We can argue culpability all night. What matters right now is that a group of Titans has been unleashed upon this continent and they appear to be growing stronger and more violent by the minute. We need help determining how to kill them,” says Sam.

“What does any of that matter to me? The few followers I still draw power from are not of this region.”

“Your arrow killed a Titan. Can we possibly have some?”

Artemis scoffs. “My arrow killed a lesser Titan. The ones you speak of are much stronger and much more difficult to eliminate. Why do you think my father imprisoned them? They aren’t easily killable.”

Sam takes a step closer. “Then is there a way to imprison them again?”

“It took the power of all the Olympic gods in existence at the time to contain them. And that was when they were at full power. There is nothing I or any of the other remaining gods can do to stop them.”

Artemis twirls the feather. “Of course, there is a way to control them. But you would be much more likely to die in the process, so I don’t see why I should bother telling you.”

Dean makes an annoyed sound. “What do you care if we live or die? Give us the information, now.”

“What a silly mortal,” chides Artemis with a light laugh. “Thinking you have any means by which to convince or threaten me.”

“Is there something you desire?” inquires Cas. “Something that might make you willing to give us what we seek?”

“Hmm, I like this one. You show a goddess the respect she’s due.” Dean just rolls his eyes. “Yes, there is something you can do. I have been searching for Gaia’s Sickle for some time now but it has eluded me. Find it and you will have the answers you seek.”

And with that, Artemis vanishes. The items on the altar vanish with her.

“Great. Not only do we not have any more information than we started with, now we’ve got to go find this sickle,” says Dean, throwing up his hands.

“I wouldn’t say we don’t have any new information. We do know that we probably cannot kill the Titans with anything we’ve got in our possession right now. And that it took the might of all the old gods to contain them, making that option much less likely.”

“So, we got nothing,” reiterates Dean. “Unhelpful bitch. And what was with the feather, Cas? Did you once say those things were powerful, too powerful to be given out like candy?”

“I was not ‘giving out’ my feather ‘like candy’. I knew the power it possessed would appeal to one who is currently lacking in power. I don’t think she would have remained for as long as she did without such an offer.”

Dean gives Sam a look as if saying ‘can you believe this?’. But Sam just shrugs. “I think Cas is probably right about that.”

“Fine. It’s everybody agree with Cas time. Well, I ain’t buyin’ this whole, go on a quest for my lost shit and I’ll reward you with knowledge once you give me your treasure. We need to be doing more to tackle this Titan problem. Like testing out all the weapons in our arsenal on these guys. Modern life has a lot of improvements on Greek infantry spears and a few little arrows.”

“Dean, I don’t think your grenade even put a dent in that ice dude. And I can’t imagine a Titan just standing around waiting for you to try out all your gadgets on it. We’ll run into the same situation we just were in in the Impala. We have to move forward with a plan. One that’s practical and doable.”

“Then why did it vanish after I threw the grenade?”

“Because it was stunned? Because it thought it had killed us? I don’t know. But if we can control them we have a shot at putting them back in prison,” says Sam, slightly exasperated.

“Assuming Tartarus is intact,” says Cas. “We still don’t know how Meg managed to locate Tartarus and defeat the Hecatoncheires.”

“I think we also need to consider pulling Crowley in on this one.”

“Absolutely not.”

Sam’s brow crinkles. “Why not? He actually might know a way to contain them. Or where Tartarus is. Or where Gaia’s Sickle is. It can’t hurt to call him. At the very least we can yell at him for putting us in this position. And for not telling us about your leg.”

Dean glances down and frowns. “Yeah, that does sound like a fun thing to do. Crowley deserves my boot up his ass for not mentioning that this thing is still a ticking time bomb.”

“Okay, so we’ll call Crowley, find out if he knows anything about Tartarus and Gaia’s Sickle, then decide on a plan after that.”

“Rock, paper, scissors you for the call?” asks Dean hopefully.

“Might as well do it together. I think it’s the least Crowley deserves.”

\---

Crowley is less than helpful. He doesn’t know where Tartarus or Gaia’s Sickle are. And he claims he didn’t know about the lethal detail about Dean’s wound. Dean does do some yelling, but doesn’t actually feel all that much better for it.

Cas and Sam retreat to the library to do research on the Titans and Gaia’s Sickle. Dean heads to his room and cleans his weapons while listening to music to help calm down.

When he’s certain Cas and Sam are completely focused on their nerd out, he closes his door and pulls off his jeans. The wound is still fresh-looking, still raw. It’s not oozing or bleeding or anything, it just looks bad. The kind of bad that Civil War surgeons probably thought merited amputation. At least there’s no bone showing, just inflamed tissue. Gross, but manageable. Well, the slight smell is certainly alarming, but Dean ignores that.

Dean gently pokes at it, the usual pain one would expect having been replaced by numbness and a strange hollowed-out feeling. That’s fairly concerning.

The door to his room flies open and Dean looks up to find Cas standing there, shock written over his face.

“It’s worse.”

“What are you doing, Cas?” demands Dean, quickly turning away from the door. “My door was closed. I could’ve been doing anything in here.”

“You were looking at your wound, which is understandable given the recent information from Artemis. Does it feel worse? You were touching it.”

Dean hastily pulls up his pants. “Cas, we’ve talked about this. If the door is closed, it means I’m looking for some private time. You do not, DO NOT, under any circumstances other than Sammy eating it or another apocalypse arriving on our doorstep, open the freaking door without first knocking.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. So what’s so important that you had to barge in on me?”

“Sam and I have found Gaia’s Sickle. Or rather, the last known location of it.”

“And how does that merit a door busting open incident?” demands Dean.

“Because it’s exactly where the last hurricane began.”

“Okay, strange coincidence. Also, it was in Texas? Isn’t that weird?”

“It was in a museum collection that has been touring the country. However, according to the curator, who Sam spoke to on the phone, it vanished a month ago. The previous location before Texas was where the third volcano erupted.” Cas is still staring at his leg.

“Stranger and stranger. You guys think there’s a pattern here, then.”

“It seems very likely that the Titans might also be looking for the sickle. Sam thinks Artemis might have requested we find it because it will somehow protect against Titans and the Titans also know this and are trying to find it or destroy it, possibly on Meg’s orders.”

“We’d better get there first, then,” says Dean.

Cas nods once. “Agreed.”

“So, what’re the chances it could be in any of the other places currently or previously hit by a Titan?”

“Unknown. And it does not seem that all of the Titan attacks are intended toward finding the sickle. The ice Titan attack was clearly intended to slow or stop our progress. And the collection was never in the areas attacked by fire. So, it is possible that Meg is using some of the other natural disasters to exact vengeance or attack other of her enemies.”

Dean goes to his chest of drawers and pulls out a flannel. “She still doesn’t know where the bunker is, so at least she can’t directly target us here.”

“But she does know it is in the area surrounding Lebanon, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to corner us at the grocery store,” points out Cas.

“So we’ll have to tread lightly while we’re out and about,” says Dean, putting on the flannel.

“It may be wise to utilize an alternative means of transport.”

“Not take Baby? Are you kidding me? She’s the only reason we made it through that ice monster attack without dying,” Dean says.

“But your vehicle is quite distinct and may draw unwanted attention. It may in fact be how Meg was able to locate us before.”

“You aren’t thinking about taking the Pimpmobile, are you?” Dean imagines the kind of ride that would be and grimaces.

“It is less identifying.”

“I don’t know about that.”

Cas goes quiet for a moment, then says, “About your leg–”

“Forget about it,” Dean says gruffly. “We got more important stuff to tackle.”

“But it does look extremely painful.”

“Eh, I’ve had worse.”

“I could try to heal it again.” Cas almost sounds hopeful, and Dean wishes he didn’t have to be such a Debby downer.

“It won’t work, Cas. You already tried before and nothing happened.”

“Maybe I could try again now. Maybe it’s losing power.”

Dean shakes his head. It’s not, the pain is only intensifying in increments, small enough for him to barely notice during the day, but when he wakes up in the morning it’s like he’s been shot with an arrow all over again each time. “It’s fine. I’m sure Artemis was wrong.”

Cas looks like he wants to argue, but he eventually just nods and leaves Dean alone to run a hand over the wound again, worriedly noticing that the numb patch has grown a bit from last night.

\---

“So what are we actually looking for?” asks Dean.

“The sickle has to be contained within a holding device otherwise it would have been found already. We’re looking for a box made of cypress or plane because that nullifies the sickle’s powers and magical signature,” explains Sam as they eat dinner at the table in the library. Usually, they are more careful about food around the books, but things seem a bit dire at the moment.

“Plane? Okay, so, needle-in-haystack time. Really looking forward to this hunt,” gripes Dean.

Sam just shrugs. “Not like we have much of a choice right now.”

“I still say we should just ignore Artemis and try something else,” Dean says, shoveling spaghetti into his mouth.

“What else? It’s not like we’re full of plans at the moment.”

“No, but anything is better than trying to find one little object in the entire continental US with just a hunch that these natural disasters caused by Titans are what will lead us to the thing.”

“We’ve gone on less, so I don’t know why you’re being pissy about this,” says Sam.

Dean puts his fork down and shoots Sam a look. “Yeah, well maybe I’m worried that we’re going to waste a bunch of time and energy on nothing and have nothing to show for it and then we’ll be even further up shit creek without a paddle than we were before.”

“Well, the curator did say that one of the interns working on preparing the collection for display in Texas quit shortly before the sickle disappeared.” Sam pulls out his phone. “She hasn’t been heard from since, but she originally comes from Washington but went to school at a small college in Wisconsin, Lawrence, I think. So there’s a few options here for some digging.”

“What’s the intern’s name?”

Sam reads from his phone, “Mary Harris.”

“That’s a pretty generic name. Think it’s Meg?”

“I asked for a description but it didn’t match Meg at all. The curator said she was tall, always wore her hair in braids, and had a bit of an accent.”

“Okay, well, there goes that idea.”

Cas comes in and sets his pack on the table. “Which of you am I accompanying?”

“Sam’ll take you,” Dean says quickly.

Sam’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, I will, will I?”

“Yep,” says Dean like it’s final and starts to head toward the garage.

“And which of us is mortally-wounded and probably could use some backup right now?” demands Sam in a frustrated tone.

“I’m fine.”

“Cas told me that the wound is looking worse.”

Dean glares at Cas. “Tattletale.”

An alert pings on Sam’s phone and he looks down at it.

“Looks like we’ve got a flood in Wisconsin. Lake Michigan suddenly decided to back up several rivers. No eyewitness, but it happened overnight, and the magnitude is greater than anything in the lake’s history and no one has a rational explanation for it.”

“Hmm, sounds like that college in Wisconsin just jumped up to top contender. I’ll head there and you head for the girl’s hometown.”

“Right, we’re going to let you go all by yourself to the site of a recent natural disaster.”

“Those volcanoes are nothing to spit at, Sammy. Plus, it’s a longer drive and you’ll need to be able to switch out if you’re going to make it ”

Sam frowns at Dean. Why is he being so stubborn about this? It’s probably to do with his leg being messed up and wanting to hide it from everyone. 

“Fine, Cas, you and I will go to Washington. Dean, don’t do anything stupid. Don’t forget that Jody and Donna aren’t too far away. I’m going to give them a call so they can be on deck if you need them.”

“Sure, you do that,” Dean shouts over his shoulder as he exits the room, leaving Sam and Cas to stare after him, perplexed.


	5. Chapter 5

Six days later and they reconvene at the bunker with nothing to show for their efforts.

No one seems to know Mary Harris. Sam theorizes that it’s a cover for one of the demons working for Meg. Cas points out how it all seemed a little too easy and that it was likely a ruse or a trap. After all, it seemed too convenient that they would find the sickle with so little effort when Artemis couldn’t even find it. Dean just returns to his drinking and lounging around in his room while the two nerds try to find the pattern in things. No need for them to know that the wound has spread down his leg and up the side of his torso. Or that he can barely walk anymore.

But Sam and Cas do know. They’ve been carefully observing Dean anytime he’s in the room, and although he’s trying his best to hide things, he has tells that Sam knows better than his own heartbeat. 

They spend every spare moment searching for the Lernaean bow myth for an answer to how to save Dean.

One night Dean falls asleep in the den, and wakes up to find a blanket over him where there wasn’t one before. He swears he heard someone speaking to him in a low voice. But when he looks around the room, it’s empty, as is the hallway when he manages to lever himself up and out the door.

More disasters happen, continuing to baffle scientists and delight doomsday predictors. Mudslides in California, more fires in the Appalachian mountains, a snowstorm in Tampa, and a band of tornadoes across the northeastern states. Things are starting to get worse, and there have been some fatalities this time around. It seems like things are ramping up—they all notice now that there are disasters everyday, when before there was only one every couple of days. Sam predicts that this will only accelerate, and Dean makes a Pacific Rim crack about aliens and needing a mecha suit. Cas is confused.

Finally, Dean gets antsy and decides to go seek out one of the Titans and try some of his weaponry on them, particularly the grenade launcher. Sam thinks this is a terrible idea and refuses to go with him, but Cas says he will come to keep Dean safe while Sam continues to work from the bunker.

The ice storm in Tampa draws Dean’s attention, as he is confident that ‘Frosty’ will be there and that it deserves some sort of punishment for what it did to the Impala. He keeps calling it “round two”. Cas just rolls his eyes. He tolerates nearly a day and a half of Dean’s music and general macho attitude before they reach Tampa. Once there, a local who swears she saw something in the storm points them toward DeSoto National Park, so after checking in at a typical Winchester choice motel, they make their way to the park.

They are tromping through the snow, trying not to fall into the swamp at the same time when Dean suddenly comes up short and falls face-first into a snowbank, the grenade launcher skidding on the ice a few feet in front of him.

Cas rushes over to him. “Dean?”

Dean grunts, turns over, and then his eyes roll back into his head. 

Cas quickly carries him back to the car; he debates going back for the grenade launcher and decides that he’d better, or else Dean will be annoyed with him later for leaving it behind. Cas checks Dean’s vitals several times during the fast drive to the motel and is reassured that they are strong.

But when he strips off Dean’s pants to check the wound and he finds the necrotic tissue has spread all the way down his leg and is starting up his torso. Cas gasps silently, horrified. 

_ “ _ _ Olani hoath ol,” _ he tries but nothing changes, yet again.  “ Σε αγαπώ”

Dean doesn’t move.

Cas brings his hand to the center of the puncture and tries yet again to heal Dean. If only he were a full-powered angel again, surely he would be able to heal this cancerous wound. But he is not and Dean is counting on him.

He picks up his phone and tries Crowley.

“Feathers. What a surprise. How’s Squirrel?”

“You know perfectly well how he is. Do you have anything that can help him? Does Rowena?”

“Hmm, I’ll have to ask.”

“Ask quickly.”

“That bad off, is he? Fine, hold on.” There’s the sound of Crowley presumably covering the microphone and then some muffled speech.

A moment later, Crowley is back. “Mother says she can help with another poultice. It won’t heal him, but it will slow the spread.”

“What is the price of this one? You already have us chasing Meg and her accomplices all over the continent.”

“Fat load of good that is doing, you aren’t anywhere near catching her are you?”

“She has help. Large help. Ancient help.”

“So I noticed. Any idea how to contain them?”

“Some, but nothing concrete yet. This was no simple task you gave us, and you know that.”

“Yes, but the life of a man is no simple thing to barter with. Especially that one. You would have done more to save him, and I gave the potion to you for a steal.”

“Which brings me back to my question, how much will this one cost?”

“Consider it insurance. You won’t be able to stop Meg if you’re down a man. I’ll bring it to you shortly.” 

“We’re in room 46 of the  Casa Loma Hotel in Tampa , Florida.”

“Of course you are.” And Crowley hangs up.

Cas holds his phone away from his ear and sighs angrily at it. So, nothing more for him to do but continue monitoring Dean’s condition and wait for Crowley to make his way to him. Not Cas’ favorite move, but waiting is necessary at times in battle. 

He sits down at the end of the bed where he has placed Dean. It would probably be wise not to reveal to Dean that he had carried him bridal style from the Impala while furtively watching for anyone to see him. Dean had not seemed enthused with the idea of being carried that way the night he was injured, so it would not do to mention it to him now. Dean was already upset with Cas for some reason, it seemed, though he had also been avoiding Sam, so perhaps it was just the company of others that disinterested Dean. Despite having put him back together piece by piece and having viewed all of Dean’s memories, and then spent the last several years at his side, Dean’s behavior still confuses Cas on occasion.

Dean shifts on the bed, then whimpers as his leg stretches out. Cas gently places his hand on Dean’s other leg in what he hopes is a reassuring gesture. 

He sits in silence for approximately thirty minutes before he can stand it no longer. 

“I know you cannot hear me, Dean, but I feel compelled to speak to you. Perhaps it is the directive you and your brother gave me earlier, to ‘keep you entertained’. I have more tales from human mythology to share with you. Even if you cannot hear them, I feel for some reason that it will offer me solace if I can share them with you now. Perhaps that will inform me as to how to share them with you in the future so that you may one day understand their message and not see them as mere stories to be shared in the oral tradition that your ancestors so proudly created.

“This one is called the Queen Crane and derives from Swedish folktales. As with the other stories, this one will be slightly modified to fit my purpose. As such, it would be more appropriate to call it the King Crane.

_ “Once upon a time there was a young man who was well known for his hunting prowess. He was especially good with his pistol, and many other hunters admired his skill and would ask for demonstrations. One day the young man was in the middle of a forest, hunting a stag and he happened upon a crane feeding in a pond. Having never hunted a crane before, the young man took aim with his pistol and was about to fire when the crane spoke. He said, “If you promise not to fire upon me, I will aid you whenever you are in trouble. You only need but call for me and I will come to you and provide you with whatever you wish.” _

_ “Seeing this to be an advantageous arrangement, the young man holstered his pistol. The crane vanished, and the young man returned to his hunt, certain that he had just been tricked by the crane. _

_ “Several weeks later, the young man was hunting a creature most fowl when he became backed into a corner and had no way to escape. Believing he had nothing else to lose, he called out “Crane, I require aid!”  _

_ “A blinding light appeared and the young man shielded his eyes. When the light had dissipated, the creature most fowl was slain and the crane stood beside the young man. “Are you alright?” asked the crane. “Yes, most assuredly because of you.” replied the young man. And then the crane vanished. _

_ “The next time the crane appeared, a beast had the young man’s arm in a vice grip and was about to begin shaking. “Crane, I require aid!” cried the young man, and as before, a blinding light appeared, the beast was slain, and the crane stood beside the young man. “Here,” offered the crane, placing his wing over the young man’s arm and it was instantly healed. “Thank you,” said the young man, and then once again, the crane vanished. _

_ “This went on for some time, the crane appearing and saving the young man when he was in peril. Sometimes the crane would heal the young man, sometimes he would allow the young man to hold onto his tail as he flew him to a safer location. Soon word of the young man’s deeds began to spread and there were those who doubted that he could slay such ferocious creatures, despite his reputation for being skilled with the pistol. _

_ “So, a king from a nearby land called upon the young man to help him solve a problem. For you see, the king had been tricked into giving his three daughters away to the sea god, and the king hoped that the young man would be able to save them from their fate. The young man tried to fight the sea god on his own, but the god was too powerful for him, so as before, he called out for the crane. The crane appeared and vanquished the sea god for the young man and the princesses were saved. As a reward, the young man was given the youngest princess as a bride and he lived happily ever after, never needing to call for the crane ever again because he was so content.” _

As Cas finishes the story, he looks up at Dean’s face to gauge his reaction. Still unconscious. 

With a sigh, Cas pulls the blanket from the end of the bed and covers Dean’s form just as he had the other night in the den. He doesn’t like the idea of Dean being cold. Watching him sleep always reminds him of how vulnerable Dean is in that state, more so now as he is lying unconscious and mortally wounded. And there is nothing Cas can do to change that. He hangs his head. What a useless angel he is.

“I do not know the moral of that story. Maybe you are supposed to be kind to animals. Or not kill beings capable of speech. I have read the original version several times and have been unable to decipher its meaning. The original version is much longer and repetitive. I didn’t find it to be the best example of human storytelling.”

Cas rewets the washcloth and wipes more sweat from Dean’s brow.

“Or perhaps there is no moral. At times, you humans enjoy stories that appear to have very little real value beyond helping to pass the time. This story may be one of those that does such. I am not sure.”

He places the washcloth down, then stands up and paces back and forth, wishing Crowley would get there now so that Dean could awaken and reassure Cas that he is not in as much pain as Cas suspects he is. 

“If only you weren’t so stubborn, Dean. You could have let us know the wound was getting this bad and we might have been able to do something to help you.” Cas sighs. “But that is not your way.”

Cas remains silent for a few minutes, looking out the window, then the need to fill the quiet overtakes him. 

“I have another tale that I believe qualifies as ‘entertaining’, though I do not believe you would find it to be so.”

He looks across the room at Dean’s prone form.

“You see, this story is personal to me. I believe that is why you humans enjoy telling these stories, you try to find characters and moments that you relate to and that allow you to view past events through a different lens. I know this story did that for me, though I will tell it to you slightly modified in order to hopefully explain why I found it so compelling.”

_ “There once was a pair of brothers who lived in a cabin in the deep northern woods. _

_ “The older brother was a carpenter and hunter. He had built the cabin they called home from the tall, old pines that dominated the forest and spent his days in the woods searching for game. The younger brother was a scholar and farmer. He had researched the best ways to survive the forest’s dangers and spent his days ensuring they had plenty of vegetables to supplement their meaty diet. At night, the older brother would whittle and tinker while the younger brother read from his many, many books. It was a good life. _

_ “Whenever the brothers needed something the land and their skill sets could not provide, they would walk the long, needle-covered path to town and trade. The townsfolk thought the brothers were strange to live alone deep in the woods, for there were monsters and the hazards that came from living so far from others, but the brothers were not afraid. They were content and wanted for nothing. _

_ “One snowy day in winter, the older brother was returning from trading in town when he came across a gorgeous crane caught in one of his traps. It was bleeding, its wound staining the pristine snow and its white feathers red. The older brother felt sorry for what his trap had done to the crane, so he gently freed the bird and tried his best to repair the damage to its wing. When he was finished, the bird flew away. _

_ “That night, the gentle snowfall turned into a blizzard, and there came a knock at the door to the brother’s cabin. The older brother opened it to find a striking man with snow white skin and black hair who begged for shelter from the cold for the night. Being of good heart, the brothers warmly welcomed the man into their home and wrapped his shivering form in the blankets their mother had quilted for each of them when they were children. _

_ “The blizzard continued for several days. Each morning, the man would thank the brothers for their kindness and offer to take his leave so that he would burden them no more. And each morning the brothers would refuse, instead drawing the man into helping them prepare breakfast, stoking the fire that kept their cabin cozy, or sharing one of their favorite activities with them. _

_ “The brothers grew to love the man, finding his companionship made them even happier than they had been before. So, when the snow finally stopped and the path to town was open again, the brothers asked the man to stay with them permanently and become their adopted brother. He accepted, on the condition that he be allowed to use his own skillset—weaving—to help provide for his new family. _

_ “On the next trip to town, the brothers brought back some yarn for their new brother. When they gave it to him, he told the brothers they could not enter his room while he worked, and they agreed. Three days later, he emerged with a beautiful cloth. It sold for a good price in town, and the brothers bought more yarn with the money. Again, they gave their new brother the yarn and he sequestered himself for many days in his room until he finally emerged with an even more beautiful cloth. This piece sold for an even greater price, and the brothers had more money than they knew what to do with, even after buying more yarn for their new brother. _

_ “However, when their new brother confined himself to his room to weave the third piece, the oldest brother’s curiosity overcame him. He had begun to develop feelings of a non-brotherly sort for his adopted brother and wanted to witness him making his unequalled works of beauty. Upon peeking inside, the oldest brother found not a black-haired man, but instead a crane, plucking its own feathers to weave into the yarn to produce the beautiful cloth. Its wings were almost picked clean, and the oldest brother wept to see this bird in such a pitiful state. _

_ “Alerted to the older brother’s presence, the crane changed back into the adopted brother and confessed that he was the bird who had been freed months ago. But now that the older brother failed to follow his command, his true identity and poor condition was discovered. Ashamed of his true form’s damaged wings and inability to be useful to his brothers, the man sorrowfully said he would have to leave them forever. He turned back into a crane and flew from the cabin, never to be seen again. _

“No doubt you would have found that tale frustrating as well. You seem to prefer narratives that feature a great deal of action and very little dialogue. I now understand why you were so anxious during my movie night pick of The Notebook.”

He sits down again on the bed, but this time by Dean’s head. He uses the washcloth to gently pat the sweat off of Dean’s brow once more. 

“The story I tried to tell you in the warehouse. The story with the crane and the beaver. I know it wasn’t the same quality of story as the others. You see, I wrote that story. Well, I tried to. And the ending, the ending is important. Because you see, the crane who had failed his own kind and found so much value in another species, he loved the beaver. He loved how much the beaver cared for his fellow beavers, how hard he worked to make sure other animals were protected, even how little the beaver cared for himself. It made the beaver humble, approachable, admirable. Things that the beaver would hate to know others viewed him as, but still.”

Cas balls up the washcloth and places it on the nightstand. “The crane loved the beaver so deeply the crane could hardly stand it. He had never loved another creature so much. And it scared the crane. For what if the beaver did not feel the same? What if the beaver cared for the crane, but only as he cared for the other animals he came across? He already loved his brother deeply, maybe he didn’t have space in his life for another. But the crane had never felt this depth of love for his own kind, even though it was blasphemy for him to feel it for another.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Cas turns away from Dean. “If only the beaver could see how the crane felt. But the beaver was too good to be saddled with a crippled crane. A crane with no wings, no home. A crane who could hardly be the valiant that the beaver needed. And so the crane contented itself to remain close to the beaver, forever loving it from afar, never bothering the beaver with his silly feelings and pathetic self. It would be enough, it had to be.”

Opening his eyes, Cas glances back at Dean. Still unconscious. 

With a sigh, Cas remains mute for the remainder of the time until there is a knock at the door. 

Opening it with an irritated noise, Cas prepares himself for the incursion of a smug Crowley, but is surprised to find the demon’s mother in his stead.

“Well, don’t leave a lady waiting on the doorstep, why don’t you.”

Cas blinks. “Of course not, please come in.”

Rowena bustles in and sets her giant carpet bag on the circular table next to the small kitchenette. “Now, let’s see what the boy’s gotten himself into this time.”

She hovers her hands over the darkened, puckered flesh and chants a few words. Dean immediately jolts and Cas quickly moves to Rowena’s side, concerned.

“Don’t you worry your little head, angel. I was checking the blood flow and determining if there were any magical blockages. Unfortunately, there is. That arrow is a nasty piece of work.”

“You are familiar with the Lernaean bow?”

“Aye. Well, I’ve heard of it. And I have heard rumors of its origin.” She turns her perceptive eyes on him. “As have you, no doubt.”

“Rumors, certainly. Nothing concrete.”

“And have you attempted to break the curse?”

Cas swallows. “Thrice. Once in Enochian, once in Ancient Greek and once more in the form of a story.”

“Hmm, maybe you need to be telling a better story, then. Or leaving the whole story thing behind for the sake of honest and straightforward communication.” She heads over to her bag. “Not that that’s you boy’s forte, so I’ve heard.”

She rustles around in her bag and pulls out a mortar and pestle, as well as several herbs. 

“What are you doing?”

“Creating a spell wrapped in a salve that will stop the spread of this diseased magic. You’ll need to rub it into the healthy flesh next to the dying skin. I’d certainly love a crack at that lovely skin,” she winks at Cas, “But somehow I think you might be better suited for it.” 

It takes Rowena another twenty minutes and a lot of spellwork before the salve is ready. 

“Here, now apply it everyday until you finally get up the courage to tell him what needs to be said.”

“I don’t know—”

“Of course you don’t, dear. Helpless, the lot of you.” Rowena cleans up her temporary workspace and moves to the door. “That won’t last forever, and I’m not in the mood to be granting favors, even if they are for handsome angels. If I hadn’t promised Fergus I’d help, then I wouldn’t even be here right now. So do us all a favor and just come out with it, yes?”

“Come out with what?” comes a weak voice from the other side of the room. Cas nearly drops the glass container full of the salve.

Rowena hurries over to Dean. “Now, don’t worry your little head about anything. Your angel here has something that will ease your pain and help you get back to full functionality, well at least for a little while.”

Dean’s eyes are glazed over and Cas wonders if he even recognizes Rowena. He seems to know Cas, though, because a soft grin molds itself to his face when Cas walks over. 

“Get busy, angel. He won’t stay lucid forever, the pain is too great,” advises Rowena, before placing another vial on the nightstand. “In fact, this will do for the pain,” she tells Cas, then exits.

Cas quickly removes the stopper from the salve bottle and spreads some of it on his hands, then gets to work on Dean. He has to stop Dean from grabbing his wrists or squirming when Cas moves over a ticklish part of his abdomen. Dean seems to be barely with it, but just enough that Cas is able to convince him to roll over so that he can spread the salve on his back. 

Then he flips Dean over and forces him to take the pain tonic. Dean immediately relaxes and Cas silently sends a thank you to Rowena for granting Dean this relief, however brief, from what must be a massive and consuming amount of pain if the way he flops down in boneless relief is any indication.

Cas spends the entire evening at Dean’s side, watching him. He knows that Dean doesn’t like when Cas does this, has told Cas several times never to do it again, but he cannot help himself in this instance. Dean is hurt, he needs someone to keep watch. 

He considers Rowena’s words and right before dawn finally says aloud, “I love you.”

But the wound remains the same, and when Dean wakes shortly afterward and resumes his ‘we are going to ignore this is going on and that I’m in as much pain as I am’ game, Cas knows he’s failed. 

Again.

\--

Sam corners Cas in the library less than a day after they return from Florida.

“So what exactly is going on between you and my brother?”

“To what are you referring, Sam?” asks Cas, shelving another book that had been useless in their quest for better understanding the Titans and the bow.

“Well, earlier he was avoiding us pretty steadily, but you would still check in on him regularly and bring him food. Now, you aren’t doing that anymore. What happened in Florida?”

“Dean collapsed and Rowena had to create a salve to stop the spread of the wound. I kept watch and then we returned here for Dean to heal since it was pointless for him to try to continue chasing after the Titan in his condition.”

Sam narrows his eyes, considering. “Yeah, that’s what you said before when you returned” he says slowly. “But then why aren’t you hovering at his bedside anymore?”

“Dean made it clear on the drive home that he did not require assistance and would take any attempts to assist him badly. I’m trying to respect his wishes.”

“Since when have you ever done that?”

Cas frowns at Sam , then side-steps the question. “Should we return to searching through the books and tracking Titan movements?”

“We probably should,” agrees Sam, then he pauses. “Did Rowena have anything useful to say about Dean’s condition?”

Cas shakes his head. “Besides that he is worsening and needs some kind of cure? No.”

Sam gives him a calculating look. “That’s it? Usually she’s a font of knowledge. Surprised she hasn’t run into something like this before, or know more about it given that she was able to create that poultice for Crowley even before Meg fired the bow.”

“She may have alluded to some possibilities, but nothing concrete.”

“Oh? Possibilities like what?”

“That the key to saving Dean lies in the myth of the bow.”

“But we’ve searched for that myth. I’ve scoured the internet and all the books on Greek lore in this library and found nothing. Does she know something we don’t?”

“Not that I could tell. At least, not anything helpful.”

“She did suggest something, though?”

Cas feels trapped suddenly. He doesn’t want to admit to Sam what he can barely admit to himself or Dean. He looks down at the floor in a mixture of shame and fear. 

Sam shuffles closer. “Cas? Hey, whatever it is, it’s okay.”

Cas looks up at him, miserable. “No, it’s not. I can’t tell you because I can’t tell Dean myself. And if I can’t tell Dean, then I can’t tell anyone else.”

Sam’s face changes from a concerned frown to a knowing look. “Oh,” he says, then sits down in one of the chairs around the library table. “Wow.”

“Sam, whatever you believe you’ve deduced, please keep it to yourself.”

“Of course, Cas. But why don’t you tell him? I know he can be dense sometimes, but Cas, I really think you’ll be surprised by what he has to say back.”

Cas just shakes his head. “Dean does not appreciate direct admissions of feelings. He seems to enjoy media centered around veiled confessions.”

“Well, Dr. Sexy notwithstanding, you aren’t wrong about that.” 

“Thus my approach has been similar. Early humans found comfort in folklore and the lessons learned therewithin. I assumed Dean would be the same, but that does not appear to be the case.”

Sam wants to laugh. Cas is clearly trying hard to tell Dean how he feels, and although his intentions are good, his approach is all wrong. “Dean’s a bit emotionally-stunted.”

Cas frowns. “Perhaps you are right. Regardless, I have tried to heal him with...with the ‘magic words’ already. But it hasn’t worked. Not in Enochian, not in English, not in Ancient Greek.”

“Well, unless we know the circumstances around the bow’s myth, we can’t be certain what the correct way to deliver that message is.”

“I know,” agrees Cas. “And thus I will continue to search for a means to convey the message appropriately.”

Sam thinks for a moment, then poses a hypothetical. “Let’s say you are wrong and the thing you think you need to say to heal him isn’t it. What do you have to lose by saying it anyway?”

Cas looks down at Sam grimly. “Everything. I could lose everything.”

\--

Sam ruminates over the situation between Cas and Dean. He knows Dean has issues with intimacy given how they grew up, but he thinks it’s past time for him to do some growing. He thinks maybe Cas could be the catalyst to spark change in Dean, but knows that Cas is trying to do some growing of his own right now and that the risk versus reward of telling Dean how he feels is pretty steep.

With a sigh, and a wish for a few more hours of sleep instead of dealing with a pair of emotionally-stunted idiots, he pulls out his laptop and on a whim searches for ‘love confession’. First up is a website with templates for letters. No, Dean won’t be able to accept something written down—he’s more of an in-person sort of guy. Next up are TV tropes involving love confession, and now maybe there’s an idea. Dean does love his TV. Maybe Cas could find a similar situation in Dr. Sexy and make Dean realize he feels the same way. But as quickly as the idea occurs to Sam, he dismisses it. Cas will be confused about the TV part and it will take too long to explain to be useful. 

After that comes a website with book quotes. If there’s something a good bibliophile loves, it’s a book quote that says exactly what you’re trying to express. But this too gets discarded for being inappropriate for the situation. Sam sighs. The link after that is for a fifteen-step guide to confessing your love to someone. Sam swallows a laugh. He could print this out and give it to Cas and the guy would probably try to follow it to the letter. Which would be slightly hilarious to watch, but would also probably result in disaster. Dean would think Sam had put Cas up to it, and then that would ruin any chance of them getting their heads on straight.

What they really need is a near-death...and then he realizes why Dean had been so weird around Cas after he’d been shot with the arrow. Had Cas tried to tell him how he felt? And had Dean done his usual avoidance and deflection?

While he’s ruminating over the latest melodrama in his life and his growing exhaustion, a ping comes up in the program he’d created to track natural disasters. Another wind storm out of nowhere, but this time something interesting in relation to it—it had happened where an angel, Dabriel, had died. Sam remembered them chasing down the report of the angel’s death about a year ago. How strange...how coincidental. But in their lives, it’s too much for that to be a coincidence. 

Sam starts looking over the other natural disasters and finds they too all happened within 50 miles of known angel deaths. The pattern, the pattern they’ve been looking for is finally revealed.

He hurries off to update Cas and Dean.

\--

“So?” is the first thing out of Dean’s mouth.

“It’s a pattern!” exclaims Sam. “We finally know why the Titans are targeting the locations they are.”

“To check out sites where angels have died? How does that help us? It doesn’t change the fact that we still have no way to stop them. So what if we know another fire is going to start in Virginia? Doesn’t mean we can do anything about it.”

“No, but maybe I can use this information to triangulate Meg’s location.”

“Can you?”

“Well, maybe.”

“See, told you you’ve got squat. Let me get back to working on Baby. She’s still a mess from Frosty.”

Sam turns to Cas, who is frowning. “Cas? You got something?”

“Why would Meg care about this? A dead angel is powerless and therefore useless to her.”

“There’s zero residual power?”

“They are as powerless as a dead human. The grace inside is burnt out when an angel dies—nothing remains. A similar thing happens when an angel falls.”

“Huh.” Sam’s laptop pings again, and he does a double-take. “Might want to tell her that, because there’s been grave desecration in some of these locations. I bet you anything that it’s the bodies of the angels.”

Cas tilts his head, puzzled. “That is indeed strange. I have no explanation. Do you?”

Sam can only shake his head. “I have no idea. None whatsoever.”

\--

Sam walks past the library on his way to the bunker’s front door on his way out for a jog. He’s been having trouble sleeping, so he’s hoping some exercise will finally wear him out enough to get a few hours of shut-eye. Out of the corner of his eye he catches Dean jumping away from one of the shelves, holding a book and looking guilty, cueing Sam into the fact that he’s up to something.

“Uh, what’re you reading?”

Dean quickly closes the book and shoves it back onto the shelf. “Nothing.”

“So you weren’t just leafing through a compendium of fairy tales?” 

Dean just gives Sam a look. “Just taking a break from Baby. I need some parts and they’re not going to make it to us anytime soon, especially if Meg’s not so little friends keep disrupting shipping around the country.”

“I’m pretty sure that book’s got nothing to do with what we’re working on right now.” Sam folds his arms, giving Dean a narrow look.

Dean tries for an innocent face. “I was looking to see if the Sickle was in any other stories.”

Irritated at the attempted deceit, Sam steps closer. “That’s a lie. Come on, Dean. What’s going on?”

“Needed a bedtime story. Yah know, something to help me since counting sheep hasn’t been very useful lately.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Fine, don’t tell me. But you should know that Cas asked me where all the folktale books were a couple of months ago—said something about research for a side project.”

“Yeah, I’m helpin’ him with that project,” says Dean quickly.

“Right. So what’s this project all about?”

“Uh, the importance of stories?” Dean says, his voice pitching slightly higher at the end.

“Huh, guess Cas is trying to understand humanity a little better through the medium of storytelling, then.”

“Yeah, that’s it. But I guess I’m a little confused about why he cares so much.”

“You know, stories can be really important to people. Look at how nuts some people get over stuff like Game of Thrones.”

“Hey, Game of Thrones is awesome. In fact, you need to binge watch with Charlie and I the next time she comes over to catch up.”

Sam just barely stops himself from rolling his eyes. Then a thought occurs to him. “Hey, do you remember when I was really little, like three or four, and you used to go to the library wherever we happened to be at the time and ‘borrow’ the books in the Boxcar Children series and read them to me?”

Dean nods. “Yeah, so?”

“I used to look forward to that so much. I couldn’t wait to go to bed just so I could hear more about the adventures those kids got up to. They reminded me of us, although the stuff they faced was much more G-rated than what Dad was hunting at the time. Remember how I made you reread the first one like two dozen times? Those kids being off on their own, having no real adult supervision, having to figure out how to find food? That was us. And having you read about it made me feel better—I could identify with them. We weren’t alone, we were just like the Boxcar Children.”

Dean stares at Sam for a long minute. “You also liked the Hardy Boys. I think you just had a thing for mysteries.”

Sam sighs. “Fine, maybe I do. But that doesn’t change the fact that it did make me feel less alone to hear about those kids.” He pauses for a moment, then adds, “The stories Cas is telling, do they seem just like something he’s just telling for the heck of it?”

“No, they really did seem important to him, like he is trying to tell me something.”

“Okay, then can you maybe describe the stories? Maybe I can help you understand.”

“So, there was this one with a crane and another bird. The crane wants the other bird to move in with him or something and the other bird acts like a jerk, so the crane sorta gives up and then nothing gets resolved.”

“Okay, not really ringing a bell. How about another one?”

“Something about soup? And not being able to get to it?”

“Did you even pay attention to what Cas was saying?”

“I did! I was sorta dying at the time, so cut me some slack.”

Sam gives him a look that’s less than impressed, then gestures with his hand. “Is there another one?”

“Yeah, uh, there was one he told me when I was half-awake. I don’t know if he knew I heard it. This one he told was about a pair of brothers. And there was a crane who got shot or something by one of the brothers who then patched it up. Then a guy shows up at the brother’s house during a blizzard and the brothers help him. So the guy makes them some quilts or something to say thank you. But the older brother busts in on the guy while he’s making a quilt and finds the crane. Who then flies away like a jerk because he apparently can’t be around the brothers now that they know his true identity.”

“You’re talking about The Crane Wife.”

“The whosa whatsit?”

“Crane Wife. It’s a Japanese folktale.” Sam goes over to a bookshelf, searches for a moment, then pulls out a book and quickly leafs through it. “Here.”

Dean looks at the page. There’s an illustration of a crane pulling its feathers out and weaving them into a tapestry. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

“Huh. Lotsa cranes in these stories.”

“That’s what I said. Guy’s been watching too many nature documentaries or something.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s it.”

Dean can hear the sarcasm in Sam’s voice but chooses to ignore it. “So that’s why I’m reading up on fairytales. Clearly the dude’s got something in his head and this is how he’s trying to express it. So I’m just trying to figure out if maybe something’s going down in heaven or what.”

“Wait, what makes you think there’s something going down in heaven?”

“Well, there was one more story.”

“And?”

Dean pauses for a moment, squints. Then he recites, “Once upon a time there was a crane who lived happily with his family. Then there was a falling out in the family over something and it became illegal or something to care about other species. Except this one crane, he finds a drowning bear, I think, and saves it. Kinda starts to really wanna take care of and be around this bear. Which of course gets his family’s panties in a twist. Cas didn’t get to finish the story because you and Crowley showed up, but it sounded like a good ending was incoming. I think he might have told it to me again when I was unconscious in Florida, but I can’t be sure.”

Sam stares at him for a long moment. Then he says slowly, “And this story doesn’t ring a bell for you at all?”

Dean frowns. “It does sound like something maybe mom read to me a long time ago or something. That’s why I’m reading these books, to find the ending.”

“And you think Cas is telling you something through a fairytale? Doesn’t that seem a little, I don’t know, too roundabout for him? Cas isn’t exactly super ambiguous about stuff.”

“He can be when he wants to.” Dean frowns down at the stack of books in front of him. “Dude can be downright cryptic at times.”

When Sam doesn’t say anything for a moment, Dean looks up. “What?”

Sam has a constipated look on his face. “Nothing. Just...do me a favor and pay better attention to what Cas is telling you next time.”

“I listen!”

“Whether or not you hear is the issue,” points out Sam. 

“Whatever. You gonna help me or not?”

Sam shakes his head. “Pretty sure you’ve got all the clues you need already.”

“Fine fine, you gonna be all unhelpful, I’m going back to my room.”

“I’m not trying to be unhelpful, Dean. It’s just, I think you need to think about what Cas was trying to say with those stories.”

“You don’t think I’ve been trying to figure it out? But don’t forget between us, who did the better job in high school English. I was terrible at finding the deeper meaning behind books.”

“That’s not true. Why else would you love Vonnegut so much?”

“‘Sides the fact the guy’s a genius?”

Sam gives him a look.

“Fine, fine. So maybe I do sometimes get the secondary message. But Cas ain’t no Vonnegut. And some of the stories he’s telling are just weird. Kinda like him.”

Sam takes pity on Dean. “Then try asking him outright what he means. I know you’re not all about the touchy-feely stuff,” and here Dean snorts, “But I really think Cas is trying to tell you something and it’s important.”

Dean prevaricates for a moment, then nods. “Fine. I will. But you don’t say anything to him before I get a chance to, alright? Can’t have you head shrinking him.”

Rolling his eyes, Sam promises, “Fine.”


	6. Chapter 6

Dean wakes up damp and cold, two of his least favorite things. Ever since he’d gotten his memory foam mattress he’s gotten soft.

WIth a groan, he tries to roll over onto his side, but forgets about his leg wound because in the next moment he’s on his back in agony, his leg light up as if lava is pouring onto it. Or maybe it’s magma, Dean can never remember.

He lets out a quiet pathetic moan, then focuses on getting his breathing under control again. Once he’s stopped panting, he manages to sit up while avoiding irritating his wound further.

He finds a dark, waterlogged cell looking back at him. It’s empty except for him, bigger than his room in the bunker but just barely. Dean levers himself up and to the door. It’s huge, metal, and has a soup can-sized opening at eye-level. Too small to fit his arm through to get to the lock on the other side. Great.

Dean checks the perimeter, but it’s all stone. Impenetrable. Basically, a solid cage, one he has little hope of escaping.

Gripping his leg, Dean slides to the floor and tries to remember how he’d come to be in this situation. Last thing he remembered was driving in the Impala with Cas in the passenger seat. Touching his head, Dean finds a small knot at the back. That explains the memory loss. Given how many knocks he’s had on his head over the years, it’s surprising he remembers anything anymore.

A cough sounds from behind him. It’s followed by a groan that turns into a whine of pain. 

“Cas?” Dean calls out cautiously.

The whine stops. “Dean,” grunts out Cas, sounding like he’s been punched in the gut.

“You okay, buddy?”

“No. I believe I’m wrapped in angel-proof bindings. It’s difficult to see, given that they are so tight I can’t move.”

“You hurt, though?”

“The bindings are...uncomfortable.”

From the tone of Cas’ voice, it’s more likely that they hurt like hell.

“Hang in there, we’ll get out soon.”

“Of course.” Cas doesn’t sound confident.

“You remember anything about how we got here?”

“We were investigating Sam’s lead on the Sickle in St. Louis. We split up to search the building and I heard what sounded like a body falling, so I followed you and found you unconscious on the floor. It looked as though you had been struck in the back of the head. Before I could reach you I was ambushed by Meg and another woman. They used very old magic to incapacitate me and that is my last memory.”

Dean touches the back of his head again. It stings.

“You recognize the other woman?”

“No, but I did sense power. She’s no human.”

“So, we’re up against a demon with several of her buddies and an unknown not human with power. Just a usual Tuesday for us.”

Cas just grunts. 

Dean tries to think of something else to say that’s reassuring, but his own pain is starting to make itself known again and he has to lie down on the floor to keep the part of his wound that’s spread to his torso from complaining.

“Are the bindings something you’ve experienced before or new?”

“New. These were not originally made for angels. I think they were made to contain something bigger as the chains are quite large.”

“Like Titan large?”

“No, these would be ineffective against a Titan. But they are old. Perhaps from the same time frame as the Titans.”

Dean hums in acknowledgment, thinking. “Think Meg’s new friend is that old, too?”

“Possibly. It may be how she was able to find and break into Tartarus.”

Silence for a moment. Then Dean asks, “How bad do they really hurt, Cas?”

“They are burning my grace. A new and quite unpleasant sensation. Usually angel-proof bindings merely restrain my grace and prevent me from accessing it. This is seeking it out and actively attacking it. And—” Cas cuts himself off, like he’s thinking better of sharing more.

“And?” prompts Dean. “Come on, buddy. Gotta know what we’re dealing with here.”

“And my grace is not withstanding the onslaught well. I can already feel parts of it dying.”

“You’re going to lose your mojo?”

“If I’m not removed from these bonds soon, yes.”

“How soon is soon?”

“Difficult to say,” grits out Cas, “But I approximate that I will no longer have any grace remaining within three days.”

“Then we have three days to figure out how to get out of this shit hole.”

Cas grunts affirmatively. 

“If only we weren't both so busted up,” mutters Dean to himself. “This would be a lot easier.”

Dean pushes himself up to standing again and starts to examine the stone, looking for weaknesses. He makes it all the way around the cell, searching the seams and every nook and cranny, but nothing gives. The door is a similar story.

“Well, maybe this won’t be as easy as I hoped. Let’s see if we can catch our captors with their pants down when they pay us a visit, hopefully soon. Otherwise, I’m fresh out.”

Cas doesn’t say anything, so Dean just lays down again and hopes their captors come soon.

\--

Dean isn’t great at judging the passage of time, but Cas is, so when he announces they have been in these cells for twenty-four hours, Dean starts to feel antsy. No one has come by to gloat, no one has come by to interrogate them, no one has come by to even offer them food or drink. He eyes the dirty standing water in one corner of the room and promises himself he’ll drink it only if things get truly dire. After all, there’s no saying what kind of stuff is swimming around in there, giardia or something equally bad. 

The lack of visitors or any other indication of life is distressing, though. As Cas calls out thirty-six hours and then forty-eight, sounding weaker and weaker each time, Dean’s anxiety starts to grow. 

He takes to asking, “You still with me?” and receives a simple but miserable-sounding “Yes” in response each time.

“Sam will find us. We never go more than twelve hours without checking in, and he knew where we were, so that’ll give him a good head start.”

Dean leaves out the fact that he seriously doubts they are anywhere near where they were taken from. He knows Cas isn’t stupid, either, and just accepts Dean’s self-soothing proclamations without protest. 

The pain in Dean’s leg and torso magnifies without the painkillers and liquor he’s been using to keep it at bay. Sometimes he just lays on the stone floor and rides out a crest of pain while breathing as quietly as possible so as not to alert Cas to his pain. He suspects Cas is doing something similar, though at least Dean has the luxury of walking around his small cell from time to time to keep from getting too stiff. 

At the sixty hour mark, Cas starts whimpering quietly. 

“Hang in there, we’ll get out,” Dean promises as he renews his efforts to find an escape route. But the stone and metal remain unyielding, impossible to bend or break.

He starts pacing the cell, limping along, uncaring about the increasing pain from his leg. 

Dean resorts to drinking the standing water in the cell. A few hours later and he doesn’t feel any worse, so maybe he’s okay. His stomach is reminding him that it’s been a while since he ate, though, and without anything else to distract him, it’s becoming annoying.

Cas falls completely silent a few hours later and Dean fears the worst.

“Cas?”

When Cas doesn’t say anything in return, Dean feels his pulse quicken. “Cas, come on, answer me.”

“I’m almost out of grace.”

Dean’s heart drops to his stomach. “Oh.”

“However, these chains are no longer causing me as much pain, so there is at least that.”

“Right.” But you’re practically human again, Dean wants to say. Human and vulnerable again. “Can you move at all now?”

“No, the chains are still too tight, no matter how I try.”

“Too bad. Was hoping you could give your cell a look-over and see if there was anything you could do to escape.”

“No, that is not possible. Your original plan of waiting until Meg or her accomplices come to see us is still our best option.”

“If they haven’t forgotten about us. Sheesh, usually she’s Johnny on the spot.”

“She might be preoccupied with the Titans.”

“Or maybe Sam’s rescue plan is messing with her usual M.O.,” says Dean hopefully.

They lapse into silence for a while.

“Hey, Cas?”

“Yes, Dean?”

“You know how you told me a story before when I had that arrow stuck in my leg?”

“Yes?”

“Think you could do it again? It’s getting pretty boring here and I think we could both use something to get our minds off of our current situation.”

Cas is quiet for a long moment. “I’m out of stories for the moment. At least, stories like the ones I was telling you before.”

“Really? It doesn’t have to be a fairy tale. You could just tell me something about human history, you know, something that you observed and found funny.” 

Cas remains silent for long enough that Dean starts to wonder if maybe he upset him somehow. Should he not have mentioned the time before, when Cas would have been an angel now that he’s practically lost his grace yet again?

“Something that has always fascinated me is humanity’s love of stories. You have told them for almost as long as you have had language. In fact, storytelling came before even the written word.” He pauses, then continues with, “Angels do not have stories. We have a history, we have songs, but we don’t have the imagination that humanity does. The sheer capacity to invent a narrative where there was nothing previously is something uniquely human. Do you know how special you are?”

Dean shifts uncomfortably. “I don’t know about that. You seen the Kardashians? Pretty sure that’s not humanity’s finest storytelling hour.”

But Cas just keeps on speaking. “I was there when Beowulf was recited around Scandanavian campfires. And again when the Australia Aboriginals painted symbols from their stories on cave walls to help their storytellers remember the tales. Their storytelling prowess was unmatched in their day. It remains one of my favorite moments in human history.”

That surprises Dean. He knew Cas had been knocking around for a while, and had been there for all kinds of historic events. But for him to consider that to be one of the greatest moments in human history? Dude needed to get out more.

“You gotta get out more, Cas,” Dean says aloud. “There’s the Grand Canyon to see, for one thing, plus Niagara Falls ain’t too bad to look at.”

“Those are creations of my Father. And beautiful in their own rights. But nothing compares to the ingenuity of humanity. You should be proud of your fellow humans’ accomplishments, Dean”

“Sure, they’re great and all, and nothing beats a good hour of Dr. Sexy, but for that to be the greatest human accomplishment, really? What about all those skyscrapers? And vaccines? And, I don’t know, cars are pretty awesome.”

“But stories give life meaning, don’t you see? Stories explain the human condition and give hope. They provide a vehicle by which to explain what seems unexplainable.”

Dots start to connect in Dean’s mind. “Is that why—”

His question is cut off by the sound of metal scraping against metal in the distance. 

“Finally!” he breathes, pushing himself onto his feet with a pained grunt. Time to escape this shithole. 

Footsteps come closer, several sets, and Dean moves to the right of the door, flattening himself against the wall. If they look in his cell, it’ll look like he’s gone and then when they open the door to check, that’s when he’ll pounce. Or, rather with his bum leg, throw himself at their captors and take them by surprise.

Except the steps don’t stop in front of his cell. They come up just short.

“Angel. Your grace is almost gone. Are you prepared to make a deal to restore it?” comes a voice that Dean does not recognize. It’s definitely not Meg. There’s a bit of an accent to it, and Sam would probably know from where without even trying, but Dean is left struggling. Something European, maybe?

“Who are you?” Cas grunts out.

“That is unimportant. Answer the question.”

Whoever she is, she’s confident and doesn’t waste any time with extra chitchat. Dean tries to get a peak at her through the small opening in his cell, but she’s just out of his line of sight.

“No, I will not make any deals,” says Castiel.

“Fine, then we will move on to our second option.” Footsteps, this time coming toward Dean’s cell. He quickly flattens himself against the wall again, getting ready.

“If you will not comply willingly, then we will torture your companion until you do.”

The door flies open, but no one steps through. Dean frowns.

“You will step away from the wall now, human.”

Element of surprise taken away, Dean limps forward, expecting to find some burly-looking demons waiting in the doorway. Instead there are four small-bodied women, all dressed in blood-red outfits. One of them holds a lit torch. They all have bronzed skin, the kind that looks like someone’s had a spray tan. Their hair is up and curly where it cascades from the bad of their heads. But it’s their eyes that unsettle Dean the most. There is something dark and angry there. He can feel the energy of that building in the small cell. It makes him want to punch something or someone, makes him want to find something to use as a weapon so that he can just hammer down on someone until they are broken and bleeding beneath him.

One of them steps forward and through the doorway, then the others follow in lockstep. Clearly the first one is the leader of this strange group. The dark energy intensifies. 

“Bring the tools, Eris. He has already been injured by the Lernaean Bow, so we need only to strike there, for the pain will be immense.” The leader inclines her head and two of the women step forward to restrain him.

Not interested in being bested by a bunch of girls, Dean strikes out at the closest one. She gracefully dodges his punch, then returns it with the force of a sledgehammer. Dean goes down, hard. So, clearly not just ordinary women or demons. The dark energy had clued him in to that fact, but now he knew for certain. He gasps against the pain in his ribs, fortunately on the opposite side from the arrow damage, but still painful nonetheless. 

“Dean?”

“I’m fine,” he can barely gasp out. 

“You won’t be for long,” promises the leader in an emotionless tone. “Eris, the knife.”

One of the women steps forward and hands a blade to the leader. It’s silver, almost a foot long, and is already bloodstained. Gross, thinks Dean, before the two other women are beside him, hauling him to his feet and holding his arms at his sides. He tries to struggle, but it’s like fighting concrete.

The leader steps forward, then immediately plunges the knife into Dean’s leg, adjacent to when the arrow had pierced his calf. 

Dean had promised himself he wouldn’t exclaim, wouldn’t make any noise if at all possible. But he cannot help the howl of pain that comes out of his mouth. She hadn’t even worked her way up to stabbing him. Usually there were threats, promise of pain, then a small cut on a vulnerable place to show someone meant business. But this woman just rammed the knife in and then twisted it slightly. Clearly Meg had gotten pointers from this woman, because neither of them had hesitated to do him bodily harm.

“Dean!”

He can’t respond, he can’t even think past the pain. His leg had already been in somewhat agony, but now, now the pain is all he can feel, the pain is in his mouth, he’s bitten his tongue, it’s excruciating, it’s up there with the worst pain he’s ever felt, it’s almost as bad as the torture in hell, because now she’s removed the blade and is looking at his ribs calculatingly and no hell no Dean does not like the look one bit and before he can protest she’s stabbing him again, this time for sure hitting his lung because he’s wheezing, barely getting any air in, and this isn’t torture, this is intent to kill, and no matter where she lands the next blow, Dean’s not going to make it, he’s going to beg, he’s going to beg to Cas to take the deal because he’s going to die here and that’s not the plan, they still have to deal with the Titans and Meg, he’s not supposed to die in a damp cell with Cas listening next door, slowly losing his mojo, and how the hell is he going to— 

“Stop!”

“Do you yield, angel? Will you comply?”

“Yes, I will. Now, heal him, immediately!”

The leader’s deep red lips curve up into a wicked smile. “Not part of the deal. So we should hurry up and get your grace restored so you may heal him, yes?”

And with that, the leader turns and exits Dean’s cell, her lakeys following, their sudden lack of support leaving Dean to face-plant onto the stone floor because his body cannot handle holding him upright any longer. The remaining air in his one good lung exits on a wheeze and he can barely gasp in new oxygen to keep his body from failing. The only good thing about their departure is that most of the dark energy has left with them.

His door slams shut and the one next door immediately opens. 

“Heal him, now, or I won’t comply.”

“Are you defaulting on our deal? Because if you are I will only return to his cell and torture him more.”

“No,” Cas sounds frustrated. “But if he dies, then I...then the deal is invalid.”

There’s a pause, while the woman appears to consider this, then she says in a bored tone, “Phobos, see to it that the human does not perish. But do not make him too comfortable.”

Dean’s cell door opens again, and one of the women who had been holding him enters and then crosses the room to kneel at Dean’s side. None too gently she presses her hand against Dean’s ribs and then his leg. At first nothing seems to happen, but then oxygen is suddenly filling his lungs and again and his leg doesn’t feel like it’s in quite so much agony. He sucks in a full breath of air, then another.

“Dean?”

“Yeah,” is all he can reply.

“So, we have our deal?” says the leader, more declaring than asking.

“We do. What am I meant to give up in order to receive my grace again and for you to stop torturing Dean?”

“All will be revealed in time. Now, I will release you from your bonds but do not attempt to flee or fight us, for Phobos is going to remain with the human and will kill him if you do not follow through on your part of the bargain. Understood?”

“Yes,” Cas replies, sounding reluctant.

Dean wants to call out to Cas, tell him that whatever this deal is, it isn’t worth his life. There’s something scary about these women. They move with cold assurance and after being stabbed by their leader, they don’t do things by halves. And then there’s that dark energy that had put Dean’s blood on boil and made him want to break things, maybe even people. He doesn’t like that energy one bit, and the thought of Cas being affected by it sets his teeth on edge. He needs to punch this Phobos chick, get to Cas, and get them away from these people as fast as possible.

But he is still catching his breath and trying to recover from the trauma his body suffered just moments earlier. Plus, this blood-red clad lady, although she’s stepped away from him and to the door to close it behind herself, doesn’t seem like she would be averse to stepping on his windpipe to teach him a lesson.

So, he remains quiet, even as he hears the chains fall onto the stone next door, even as he hears Cas slowly get up and shuffle toward the door. 

They don’t pass in front of his door, they go back the way they came, and Dean regrets not getting a chance to see Cas, to make sure he’s all right, to make sure that he is going to be alright. 

Instead, Dean is left to lie on the floor, hoping that his body will regain enough energy that when Cas comes back, alive (because if he doesn’t, it doesn’t matter how many times that woman stabs him, she will die), they can figure out a way out of here.


	7. Chapter 7

The moment Cas steps out of the cell, he feels the angel warding around him. The chains had been causing him so much pain he hadn’t noticed them. With a grim realization, he knows he cannot use his powers or even access his grace, although the teeny bit remaining is doing a good job of automatically healing his sore limbs from being left on the ground and in chains for so long.

The woman who had spoken to him leads the group out of the cell and into a deep cavern. There is something dark about the leader, something powerful and ancient. It is the same energy he got from Artemis, but this time much more malevolent. 

“Who are you?” he asks, expecting no response but figuring he has nothing to lose. 

The woman turns toward him and glares. “My name has long been forgotten. Unlike my consort, my legacy is practically nonexistent. You would not recognize my name, Angel, even if I deigned to bestow it upon you.”

“Your certainty cannot be unfounded. I would like to know it all the same.”

She stops and her attendants stop with her. “The mighty Homer confused me for one of my attendants. My name is worthless in your mouth. Do not ask me for it again or I will slay you—I care not if it delays our plans and dear Meg has to search for another option.”

Cas nods, and they resume their march through dark corridors. He takes note of the fact that he appears to be the lynchpin in their plan. There’s something there that he might be able to work with.

A few minutes later they emerge from the stone passageway into a massive cave. Cas notices that there is only one other exit to the room and that there are approximately a dozen demons waiting in a circle around a central stone slab. There are several piles of human remains around the slab, along with some scorch marks. Meg stands beside the slab, arms crossed and a smirk awaiting him.

“Took you long enough. I take it he refused at first?”

The dark woman marches them to Meg and comes to a halt right in front of her. “Yes, the angel was uncooperative at first. But then I made it clear that there would be repercussions, and he changed his mind rather rapidly.”

Meg frowns. “What did you do?”

“I stabbed the human. Repeatedly.”

For the first time in the interaction, Meg’s confidence wavers. “You didn’t kill him, did you? We need him for the plan.”

The woman waves her hand. “Of course not. I am not a fool, Meg. I just made sure the angel knew the consequences of defiance. I left Phobos with the human to ensure he does not expire prematurely. Although I still do not understand why it had to be that human in particular we use. Any of their like would do.”

Meg’s confidence returns. “Oh, there’s something special about Dean-o and our dear Clarence here, something that will make it worth our while.”

The woman nods. “Then all is ready?”

Meg nods down at the ground. “I’ve reset the symbols. We’re ready to try again.” She reaches behind her for a book lying on the stone slab, one wrapped in human skin.

Cas does not like the energy emitting from the book. Very few good spells ever came from books bound with such material. Then he looks down at the ground. There are several very old symbols painted on the ground in blood, some of which he recognizes, most of which he doesn’t. The ones he recognizes involve rejuvenation and renewal, but most are in a language unknown to him. It unnerves Cas, since he usually recognizes most languages.

“Where are we? What are you planning to do?” he asks Meg.

Meg flips the book open. “As much as I’d love to do a show and tell, that would be giving away too much. I’ll at least let you know that we intend to restore your grace in full.”

Cas frowns. “That is not possible. Grace cannot be created without my Father’s intervention.”

“That’s what we thought, too. Until we found this spell. Unfortunately, we found out that it doesn’t work on angels that have already expired, so you were our next best option.”

And then Cas realizes that the bones he had noticed around the stone slab are not those of human sacrifices to acquire the blood for whatever ritual Meg intends to complete—well, most of them aren’t at least—but rather the bones of the vessels of fallen angels. And that that’s why the Titans were located in areas where angels had fallen—they must have been accompanying whoever was robbing the graves.

“You tried to reanimate dead angels.”

“Yes, and failed each time quite spectacularly. What, did you think I was into human sacrifice or something? Not my style, Clarence, even if it is for some other people.” Meg glances over at the dark woman, who has walked away from Meg and toward a cloth on the opposite side of the room. From it she picks up a dagger, bringing it back to Meg. Cas notices there are other daggers as well as a bow lying on the cloth. The Lernaean Bow, in fact.

“And you intend to use this spell that has failed so many times on me? What assurance do I have that you will succeed?”

The dark woman chuckles. “None. This spell was used to reanimate a fallen god, however, so the chances it will restore your angelhood are good.”

“That is not very reassuring.”

“It isn’t, is it. Guess we will just have to try it and see, won’t we?” The woman says, smiling cruelly.

“But first,” interrupts Meg, “We need to be sure that you’ll follow through with your side of the bargain. We agree not to harm Dean or Sam and you will follow our orders to the letter.”

“I am not agreeing to anything unless I know exactly what I will be doing.”

Meg rolls her eyes. “Really? Why do you have to be so annoying? Fine, we’ll tell you what the plan is and then you’ll agree because you have no other choice and then we’ll start the ritual.”

Cas doesn’t say anything, just waits for her to continue.

“So, we are standing right over Tartarus. The rest of the Titans are inside and we need someone to go down there and get them out. Except we don’t have enough power to do that, so you’ll be our emissary. Just not the peaceful type. Instead, you’ll wield Gaia’s Sickle and tap into the power of a human soul and voila, Titans out, I’m headed down to rule Hell and Enyo here gets Earth.”

The dark woman, Enyo, hisses. “I told you not to speak my name!”

“Woopsies,” says Meg, shrugging. “It was going to come out eventually. After all, all of your new followers on Earth were going to need to know what to call you so that you could reestablish your power base of worshipers.”

Enyo gnashes her teeth, then growls out, “I was going to reinvent myself, to cast off the pall that Homer and those other fools created around my name.”

“You are the Greek goddess of war, known also by Bellona by the Romans,” realizes Cas.

Enyo turns her attention on Cas. “Yes, that is my name. But instead of being lauded as was my consort, Ares, my name was tainted and mostly forgotten. It was I who brought about the fall of Troy, it was I who destroyed Thebes, who assisted Dionysus against the people of India, who made the blood in men’s veins sing as they fought for victory. And how did the Greeks repay my service? They erected a single statue of me in Ares’ temple in Athens and never prayed to me for protection or favor. I was she who made war great, made it bloody and lethal. Did they appreciate me? No. And history has all but forgotten me, all because of men who did not appreciate their patron.”

As she was going on her tirade, she was stepping closer and closer to Cas, until she was practically nose to nose with him. Cas is now backed up against the stone slab, unable to move. The dark energy she possesses begins to overwhelm his grace and he can feel his anger grow, his desire to strike out begin to manifest.

Enyo hisses, “I was almost dead until Meg found me and revived me with her demon followers. They recognize the great power before them, and so soon shall all of the humans. They will go to war with one another and with the Titans, and their armies will praise my name and I will grow strong again, as strong as I should have been in the time of the Greeks, and no one, no one will dare confuse me with another or forget to pray to me for favor.”

Meg steps up beside Enyo. “Yes, yes, you will be the greatest ruler of Earth there’s ever been. But first, we have to get the Titans out. And to do that, we need to get Clarence all powered up again.”

Enyo remains in front of Cas for a moment longer, the intensity of her focus and energy holding him for another moment. Then she steps away and that feeling dissipates. Cas sags a little against the stone in relief.

“Of course, we have to be sure you’ll follow through with your end of things,” Meg says to Cas. “And since there’s a chance this spell could send you back to factory settings, we are going to perform a blood oath.”

Cas frowns in distaste. Blood oaths are old magic, usually not performed nowadays due to the likelihood that things could go wrong. But clearly Meg and Enyo are desperate, so they are willing to risk their lives and his for this spell.

Enyo uses the dagger she retrieved earlier to cut into her palm. She receives a wooden bowl from one of her attendants full of various ingredients and allows several drops of blood to fall into it. Then she hands both over to Meg who does the same.

“Now, you must swear that you will follow through with our plan to open the gate of Tarturs and release all of the Titans using Gaia’s Sickle and that that is the only thing you will do with the Sickle. You will not use it on us or any of our followers. You will follow our orders to the letter or we will kill Dean. Understood?”

Reluctantly, Cas takes the dagger and the bowl, and says “I swear,” while cutting his palm and adding his own blood to the collection. 

Enyo takes the bowl back and says a few words in Greek and the bowl’s contents glow for a moment before vanishing in a poof of smoke.

Satisfied with the spell, Meg points to the stone slab. “Get on there. Time to power us up an angel.”

Lying down on the slab, the first trickle of fear hits Cas. This spell probably won’t work. And as much as he is not interested in dying, he’s even more afraid for the fact that this might also destroy Dean’s chance at being healed. He curses himself for not saying something to Dean sooner, for being such a coward. Cas vows to himself that if he survives this, he will tell Dean exactly what he needs to the moment that he sees him again.

Meg walks around the slab’s perimeter, presumably checking that all the symbols are in place and that Cas is where he needs to be.

“Well? Get on with it,” demands Enyo.

“I don’t want to splatter Clarence all over this room, so hold tight for a moment while I check everything.”

“You were supposed to do that while I retrieved the angel.” Cas glances over and sees Enyo watching Meg with crossed arms. Her attendants are in a similar pose.

Meg stops at the foot of the slab and picks up the book. “Okay, everything is ready to go. You just need to take your place and we can begin.”

Enyo stalks over to the head of the slab and places her hands on either side of Cas’ head. She contracts her fingers into claws, scraping her nails over the stone as she does so. “I am prepared. Begin,” she instructs.

And then Meg starts chanting and the demons around them all perk up and join in, and suddenly there is a pressure in Cas’ chest and he can barely breathe even though he doesn’t need to. The pressure begins building and building and goes on for what feels like an hour until it reaches a peak so intense that surely he will explode and then there will be no one to stop Meg and Enyo, no one to save Dean from dying from the arrow’s wound, no one to warn Sam about what’s coming, but then the pressure is disappearing, it’s like it was making room for something, something that is slowly filling the empty space and it’s grace, it’s his grace rejuvenating and it’s such a rush he can hardly stand it, can barely hold on as it fills him again, and how had he gone on for so long with so little, how had he thought that he was enough of an angel without all of his grace?

The chanting slows, then stops. Cas closes his eyes for a moment to just revel in his grace being whole again, in being full of it again. If only this had happened under different circumstances. He tries to access his wings, to see if they’ve regrown, too, but they remain ugly stubs with ragged feathers. So, not back to all of his former glory. But at least he has what he does, and at least he wasn’t reset to his original condition. He still has all of his memories and experiences, even though he would very much like it if some of them had been erased from his memory.

The scraping of nails on stone snaps his eyes open. Enyo looks down at him in excitement. “You are alive.”

“Yes,” he rasps out.

The ugly smile is back. “Good. Deimos, bring Phobos and the human back here. It’s time to open Tartarus.”

\--

Dean barely makes it down the corridor and into the cavern. If it weren’t for the two angry women poking him along, he would have stopped to rest several times. As it is, he is sweating and panting by the time he enters the cave, and slightly dizzy, enough so that it takes him a minute to realize who all is present.

“Meg,” he spits out. “How not nice to see you.”

“Don’t get too sentimental, Dean. And I’d have thought you’d be happy for once. After all, I did return your angel to you in a new and improved condition.”

Dean glances over at Cas who does seem to look better than he has in a while. He’s standing taller for sure, and his skin seems brighter somehow.

Meg saunters over to him. “Looks like you aren’t in such great shape, there Dean. And that leg.” She makes a tutting sound. “So much damage. Too bad it has to mar such a perfectly good body. Guess you two haven’t figured your shit out yet.”

Dean looks over to Cas for an explanation (because hadn’t Rowena said something similar?), but Cas looks away, then back up again at the dark leader woman.

“Allow me to at least heal the damage from you stabbing him before we begin,” demands Cas.

“Fine. As long as it makes him move faster when it comes time to enter Tartarus,” concedes the leader chick.

Cas comes over to him and gently places two fingers on his forehead. The pain in his ribs and most of the pain in his leg disappears immediately. But when he runs his hand over his leg, the arrow damage remains. Cas looks down at his leg and it almost seems like he wants to say something, but then he steps back toward Meg.

“You have the Sickle?” he asks her. 

“Of course we do. You didn’t actually think we’d leave it lying around North America for some lughead hunters to find, did you?”

And then Dean realizes who the leader woman is. “You’re Mary Harris,” he declares, certain of his deduction.

The dark leader lady smirks. “That was an interesting alias. Even if I did have to deal with humans for nearly a week before I was trusted enough to handle the Sickle on my own without supervision.”

Dean lets out a groan of frustration over them having been on a wild goose chase all this time. 

Meg goes to a nearby table and opens a large dark wood box. She removes a large artifact, one Dean immediately realizes must be the Sickle because of its shape. The metal portion is dull, but the wooden handle is elaborately decorated with figures and text. From his vantage point, Dean can see that it is delicate, from the way Meg is handling it.

She walks over to Cas and hands it to him with unexpected gentleness. “You know what to do. Tartarus is that way.” Meg points to an opening in the rock on the opposite side of the room. “Don’t forget that if you fail, you die. Oh, and I also promise you that if you somehow fail to follow orders, I will personally hunt down Sam and torture him for the rest of his life. Which won’t be very long.”

Dean swallows the angry retort that threatens to bubble up from in his gut. Pissing off Meg and this other lady won’t help them right now. No, what they need is a plan. And from the way Cas is considering the Sickle, there’s a good chance he’s formulating one. 

“Well, what are you waiting for?” demands the dark lady. “Go!”

“What, you’re not coming with us?” asks Dean.

The dark lady sneers. “There is no protection for us without the Sickle. And you need to focus all of its power on your task. Don’t forget that you must comply or you will die.”

Cas levels a cool gaze at her and then Meg, then begins walking toward the opening. 

“You will take my attendants with you, however. They will ensure you make it to Tartarus without any trouble. Or rather, that you don’t cause any trouble despite everything,” says the dark lady, gesturing at the three women beside her. “Follow them. No deviations, no mistakes.”

All three women bow to the dark lady, then follow Cas.

Meg’s parting shot is as annoying as usual. “Don’t fall, Dean! It’s a long way down. And don’t forget to grab a torch or otherwise you’ll be in the dark, just like you are right now about pretty much everything.”

Dean once again suppresses his need to answer back in favor of limping after Cas and the women, who are moving with purpose toward the opening. He does grab a torch, though he wishes he didn’t need it so that he could spite Meg by not following directions. Cas doesn’t appear to need it though, because he marches determinedly ahead, just outside of the torch’s reach. Probably his angel eyes helping him there. He doesn’t know what 

They walk for at least ten agonizing minutes down the tunnel before Dean begins to feel a change in the humidity. The tunnel rock starts to go from black to gray and then white. A strange smell begins to permeate the air, a stench that sticks to the inside of Dean’s nose. The women ahead of him begin picking up the pace, and Dean grits his teeth against the pain as he tries to keep up.

A lit opening appears a hundred feet before them. Cas abruptly stops. Dean wants to ask what’s up, but one of the attendants speaks before he has a chance.

“Move, angel,” she says, unkindly.

“No,” Cas breathes out, then suddenly turns and places a palm against her forehead. There’s a blinding flash and she falls to the ground. 

The other two attendants immediately draw daggers from their belts and run at Cas. He parries the first one’s blow, but the second one catches him in the gut. Dean stops breathing for a moment, but Cas just keeps moving, as if the stabbing was nothing. Dean sincerely hopes so, because the two women are fast and relentless in their blows. Cas looks outmatched, and Dean is terrified for him.

Seeing an opening, Dean throws himself at one of the women, giving Cas the upper hand on the one coming at him. The attendant he’s tackled claws at Dean, stabbing his arm, but Dean only has eyes for Cas, only cares that Cas makes it through this fight.

And Cas takes advantage of the opening Dean gives him, smiting the attendant in front of him, then hooks the Sickle around the woman’s throat and spins her around and into his palm. She cries out, but immediately falls to join her comrades.

“Are you okay?” demands Cas, breathing hard.

Dean checks out his wounds and sees they are mostly superficial. “Yeah. You?”

Cas pulls aside his shirt and they both see his grace glowing through the stab wounds, slowly healing him. Dean breathes a sigh of relief. 

“So, that was the plan? Get rid of the angry chicks and then what?”

Cas steps over one of the bodies and touches Dean’s forehead, the warm feeling of his healing reaching every part of his body but his leg and side. “I don’t have a plan yet. It just seemed advantageous to be free of those women.”

Dean nods. “What’s through there?” he asks nodding toward the doorway.

“Tartarus, I presume. Let’s take a look.”

They carefully pick their way over the dead women and sneak up to the entranceway. A low rumbling sound reaches Dean’s ears as they approach, and he tentatively peeks around the corner.

The dungeon area is massive, even larger than the cave where Meg and Enyo had been waiting for them. And the smell of rotting flesh and decay is overwhelming. But it’s the three giant creatures across the way that have Dean’s attention. There are so many arms and heads and Dean is never going to be able to sleep again without having a nightmare about them. As he watches, they shift back and forth, their arms moving in such an unnatural way that Dean has to look away. Spiders don’t have anything on those things.

And then he notices severed arms and heads on the ground, likely the source of the smell.

“What the actual fuck?”

“Those are the Hecatoncheires. The guardians of Tartarus.”

“Yeah, but did they have to be so ugly? And disturbing?”

“The story goes that they were the offspring of Uranus and Gaia, and they were instrumental in driving the Titans away from Olympia, the home of the Olympians. Their names, according to mythology, are Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges.”

“And so they got stuck on guard duty for the rest of time?”

“They likely see it as an honor.”

“Did you see the arms and heads?”

“Perhaps left over from Meg and Enyo’s first assault on Tartarus.”

Dean wrinkles his nose, still trying to breathe through the stink. “So what, we go up to them and ask for help?”

“They are so old I doubt they would understand us or even be willing to help. Especially once they saw the sickle - it would be obvious to them that we intend to break out the Titans and they would try to crush us.”

“Your angel mojo couldn’t stop them?”

“It could, but I do not wish to harm them. It’s not their fault that Meg and Enyo are trying to undermine them.”

Dean takes another peek and almost retches at the sight of the creatures. This time he notices some scorch marks on the walls and catches a glimpse of the dungeon beyond. The door looks damaged, like it was ripped open and then forcibly pushed back into place. One of the Hecatoncheires is standing near it, and several of its faces are aimed directly at the damaged section.

“Well, what now?” asks Dean as they reconvene a ways from the entranceway.

Cas is quiet for a moment, then seems to decide something. “We cannot risk the Titans escaping, but we also cannot risk Sam.”

“Don’t forget that neither of us is going to expire today, either.”

Cas just gives Dean a sad look. Then he looks down at Dea’s leg. 

“It’s getting worse.”

“Yeah, well, getting stabbed in it certainly didn’t help.”

Cas’ face goes from concerned to angry in a flash.

“Had I known she would harm you in such a manner, I would have immediately agreed to her offer.”

Dean shakes his head. “No, you did the right thing. I didn’t even expect how fast she came at me. You got any idea who she is anyway?”

“Her name is Enyo and she is the Greek goddess of war. She and Meg plan to conquer Hell and Earth, respectively. They want to use the Titans to cause so much mayhem that they are able to establish power in the ensuing chaos.”

“And why did they need to get you all mojoed up again?”

Cas grits his teeth. “A full-power angel using the supplemental power of a human soul while wielding the Sickle is sufficient to defeat the Hecatonchires and free the remaining Titans.”

“Well, we’re not going to let that happen, so what’s the plan?”

Cas looks down at the Sickle and slowly turns it back and forth. “They also made me engage in a blood pact to ensure my cooperation. That is why they indicated I would die if I failed to comply. Additionally, this structure is heavily warded against angels.”

Dean lets out a low whistle. “Well, for once the bad guys actually thought this through. Seems like we’re backed into a corner.”

“Indeed.”

“So, no ideas?” Dean asks hopefully. 

“If I do not free the Titans, I die. If you do not allow me to use your soul as a power source, you die. If we find a way out, Sam is in danger.”

“We can get Sam out of danger so long as we neutralize Meg and Enyo. And don’t open Tartarus. So, easy.”

Cas gives him a wry look. “There is nothing easy about this Dean.”

“Yeah, well, I was trying for levity.”

WIth a sigh, Cas sits down on a large rock along the side of the tunnel. Dean joins him, planting the torch between a helpful grouping of rocks. 

“How long you think we’ve got before they send demons after us to see why we haven’t opened Tartarus up yet?”

“Difficult to say. It is likely that Enyo felt me slay her attendants. We probably have mere minutes.”

Dean grunts as he adjusts his leg to a less painful position. “Not too long, then. Wish we had some weapons or something. Besides the Sickle that is.”

Cas turns to Dean suddenly. “It’s true that I cannot use the Sickle to harm them. But there are other things I can do with it.”

“You got a plan, buddy?”

Cas nods but doesn’t elaborate. 

“Care to share with the class?”

Instead of answering, Cas just turns on the rock until he is facing Dean straight on and looks into his eyes. He stays there for what feels like an eternity, until Dean looks away, uncomfortable.

“Uh, what’re you doing?”

“Before I enact my plan, there is something I must confess.”

Dean looks back up and finds Cas looking down at the Sickle.

“What?”

“It is time I finally ‘man up’ as you like to say.” 

“Man up? What are you talking about?” Dean’s starting to feel worried about how cryptic Cas is being.

Cas looks up then and straight back into Dean’s eyes. “Dean Winchester, I love you. Not as a brother, but as one person loves another that they wish to be with forever. And I always have.”

Dean gapes at him for a moment. He opens his mouth to say...what he doesn’t know, because his mind has gone blank, but then Cas raises up the Sickle and smashes it against the passageway wall, shattering it into pieces.

The last thing Dean sees before the pain from his leg suddenly increases ten-fold and he passes out, is Cas’ shocked face.

\--

Cas catches Dean as he falls, gentling his progress toward the ground. 

As soon as Dean is horizontal, Cas checks Dean’s condition with his angel powers and is simultaneously relieved and terrified that his leg wound is no longer spreading, and the poison is beginning to fade. The curse of the Lernaean bow has been broken. He broke it, which means...he does not dare to think what it means. Dean is safe, which is all that matters. Well, relatively safe—they are right outside of Tartarus and Meg, Enyo, and a slew of demons are above them, likely ready to kill Cas for what he’s just done. But the wound that was moments away from reaching Dean’s heart and killing him has been stopped. 

Then he checks the Sickle, watching as the pieces glow faintly, then return to a dull metal once again. Whatever power it once held is now no more.

Which raises an interesting question. Why is he still here? The blood oath should have killed him the moment he disobeyed.

Cas contemplates what to do next. He can’t go back up the tunnel because Meg and Enyo will try to kill him, and he can’t go the opposite way because the Hecatoncheires will perceive his approach as an attack and he doesn’t want to harm them.

Then an idea occurs to him.

Cas picks up a smaller rock, and begins scratching symbols into the wall. 

A few minutes later and Cas drops the stone, satisfied with his work. 

He begins chanting.

Artemis takes much less time to appear this time. Like before, she appears between blinks. 

“You shouldn’t have called me here. This is a dangerous place.”

“I had no choice. I also had no choice about this,” says Cas, holding up the pieces of the Sickle.

Artemis’ smooth expression changes into one of anger. “You destroyed the Sickle?!”

“There was no alternative. Enyo and Meg would have made me use it to release the remaining Titans.”

“Enyo? That pretender to the throne is involved?”

“Yes, she claims she wants to rule Earth and be worshiped and praised as its only true god.”

Artemis huffs a laugh. “Well, that certainly explains a great deal.”

“Like what?” Dean wants to know.

“Such as how the Titans were ‘controlled’—no doubt she used her attendants to do it. They have just enough power to direct them, but not enough to actually keep them in line. Pity the Sickle is destroyed, it could have been useful to return the freed Titans to Tartarus.”

“I’m still willing to give it to you in exchange for two favors.”

“It is practically worthless now. You surely don’t expect to bargain with it alone.”

“What is it that I can provide you that you would deem worthy of trade?” asks Cas.

“What are the favors?”

“First, you will give me the arrow I provided to you on the altar. The one fired from the Lernaean bow.”

Artemis raises an eyebrow, but nods her head. “Go on.”

“And second, you will take three people back to the bunker that we summoned you to earlier.”

Artemis considers this for a moment. Slowly, she says, “These are not unreasonable requests. But as I said before, the Sickle is not enough.”

“What can I give you? I have only myself.”

Artemis lifts her chin. “And if I asked you to become my attendant? To swear loyalty to me alone and pass the rest of eternity as my servant?”

Cas swallows, then glances down at Dean’s prone form. He would do anything to keep Dean safe, even give up his freedom.

“If that is your requirement, then yes.” 

Artemis pierces him with her dark eyes. “You really would be willing to do that. All for the sake of one human.”

“Yes.”

“And does your human understand your loyalties? Does he know what a powerful force he possesses command over? The attention of an angel is no insignificant thing.”

Cas looks away. “That doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Dean is safe. I would ask that you allow me to keep him safe while I am in your servitude, and for nothing else.”

“Angel, I could command that you destroy my enemies, that you make me more powerful than I have ever been before, and all you want is to protect one human. You are a fool to offer your power so freely.” Artemis shakes her head. “Fortunately for you, I am not so vain or destructive as some of my brothers and sisters.”

Hope begins to flood Cas’ veins. “You would not have me as your servant?”

“No. My desires are far simpler. Instead, I ask you for all the feathers from your next molt as payment for your two favors. Their power will be enough to sustain me for some time.”

Cas quickly thinks over her proposition, and finding it sufficient offers the Sickle to Artemis once more. “I believe we have an agreement.”

Artemis waves her hand and the Sickle vanishes. In its place appears the arrow that once pierced Dean’s leg. “Who am I to transport?”

“Dean,” says Cas, nodding his head toward Dean’s body. “Sam, the other man who summoned you the first time, and a demon.”

“I assume this demon will not come quietly.”

“No, which is why I need you to accompany me to the chamber above this one to retrieve her. She should be placed in the basement of the bunker, within the devil’s trap.”

Artemis eyes the arrow. “And what do you intend to do with that?”

Cas smiles grimly. “Shoot a goddess.”


	8. Chapter 8

Dean wakes up in the bunker in his own bed. 

He knows it’s his own bed because of the smells and the way his mattress is cradling him just right. Wow, it’d been too long since he’d felt this comfortable. After being forced to sleep on that stone floor for days he’d made a pact with himself that once they got out and returned home, he was going to spend a week in bed watching Dr. Sexy and eating pizza to make up for being stuck in that cell.

Even better, the pain in his leg is gone. He moves his hand to his thigh and instead of meeting the scarred, puckered flesh of before, all he feels is smooth skin. Not healing skin, but completely healthy skin.

And that’s when his brain reengages and everything that happened right before he passed out resurfaces. 

Dean sits up, panicked. “Cas?”

Sam is suddenly there. “Woah, Dean! You’re awake finally,” he says, sounding relieved.

Dean turns to find Sam in a chair beside Dean’s bed. “Where’s Cas? And how did I get back here?”

“Well, Artemis brought you here. She brought me, too. I was in Canada, chasing a false trail Meg had left. Well, I didn’t know it was a false trail until it was too late. But just as I was about to turn back around, Artemis appeared and zapped me back here. She disappeared, then reappeared with you a moment later. Except you looked like shit. Sweaty and clammy and mumbling to yourself. So I put you in bed and have been keeping watch for four days.”

“Four days?”

“Yeah. Artemis said it would take a while for the arrow’s poison to work its way out of your system.” Then Sam gives him a curious look. “She also said that Cas broke the spell. Any idea about that?”

Dean swallows. “Maybe. No. But my leg is healed?” He pulls up his shirt to check and the black skin is gone, back to healthy pink. “Where is Cas anyway?”

With a shrug, Sam sits back down on the chair. “Artemis wouldn’t tell me. She did say that he’d stopped the Titans, though, and that the ones that were released on Earth are no longer a threat.”

“Yeah. Cas destroyed the Sickle.”

“He what? I thought that was the only thing keeping them under control?”

“Dunno. He must have known something we didn’t because right before I passed out he smashed it.”

“Huh. Well, all the natural disasters stopped around the time we were brought back here, so it must have worked.”

“Yeah, but where’s Cas?” A sinking feeling is starting to form in Dean’s stomach.

“What happened to you guys after St. Louis? Did you even make it there?”

Dean quickly catches Sam up on the events of the dungeon and after he was brought out of his cell and their journey down toward Tarturus.

“But if Cas made a blood pact with Meg and Enyo, doesn’t that mean destroying the Sickle was in violation of that pact?”

Which means Cas is dead. Neither of them can bear to look at one another for a long moment. 

“Uh, this probably isn’t the time for it, but Artemis brough someone else here. At Cas’ request, apparently.”

“Who?”

“If you can walk, you should see for yourself.”

Dean hops out of bed like he’s just had a good night’s sleep and follows Sam down to the dungeon. 

“Well well well, look who escaped death once again.”

“Meg.”

She is chained up in a chair in the center of their devil’s trap. A small bit of dried blood sits in the corner of her mouth. 

“You’ve ruined everything, per usual,” Meg spits out.

“Can’t say I’m too upset about that, given that you wanted to sic the Titans on humanity and then have us start a perpetual war while you got the big chair downstairs and Enyo started a new cult.”

“I offered to keep you, Sam, and Castiel safe during all of it. You could have been kings among men.”

“Never did go in for the fru fru lifestyle, right Sam?”

Sam nods.

Meg just glares. “What are you going to do with me?”

“Dunno, might just leave you down here to rot. Or we could always turn you over to Crowley.”

The glare drops off of Meg’s face. “You wouldn’t.”

“Considering that you tried to use me as a human battery, not feeling super generous toward you right now.”

Meg’s eyes dart around the room. “What do you want?”

“A lead on Cas’ location would be nice.”

A smirk slowly begins to form on Meg’s face. “Angel feathers run into some trouble?”

“The last thing I remember was him breaking the Sickle.”

“Then he’s dead. Pity.”

Dean stomps forward. “He’s not dead. Cas had a plan, he was working with Artemis. How else did you get here unless it was all a part of his plan?”

“Poor Dean. Can’t accept that our dear angel is dust.” Meg shifts in the chair. “The blood oath was locktight. No exceptions, no loopholes. I made sure of that.”

“Cas is not dead,” Dean says fiercely, even as a tiny trickle of doubt begins to form. “How else did Artemis know to come get us and capture you?”

“You’d better face up to the fact that he sacrificed himself to save all of your sorry hides.” Meg laughs. “What an idiot.”

Dean wants to hit her but he just barely restrains himself. Sam stepping up beside him and offering a quiet, cautionary “Dean” helps, too.

“If you aren’t going to tell me where Cas is, then what happened to Enyo?”

“No idea. Artemis came along and snatched me up and blasted all of my demons to who knows where, leaving Enyo alone to face her,” Meg gripes. “And she stole my bow.”

“The Lernaean bow?” asks Sam.

“Obviously. It took me months to track that thing down. I was going to shoot Crowley with it once I’d seized control. It was going to be my greatest victory to watch him slowly suffer and then die.”

“Looks like Crowley’s precautions weren’t for nothing,” says Sam. 

“Bully for him,” mutters Dean. His stomach growls angrily then, and it occurs to him that he hasn’t eaten in several days. “Come on, let’s get some food and let Megara here stew.”

On the way to the kitchen, Sam tries to ask about his leg again. “You’re sure you have no idea how it suddenly healed itself?”

“Nope. Maybe it had something to do with breaking the Sickle.”

Sam eyes him like he knows Dean is leaving something out, but just lets it be while Dean consumes half the contents of the refrigerator. 

“Are we really going to give her up to Crowley?”

“Nah, just yanking her chain a little to make her sweat. Crowley never said anything about handing Meg over in that contract, did he?”

Sam thinks back, then shakes his head. “No, it was all about stopping her, nothing about capturing and turning her over.”

“Then we’ve got one more resident for however long we decide. I doubt exorcising her would do anything worthwhile, not after the way she left her last vessel.”

“Yeah, would probably do more harm than good. Besides, she might come in handy at some point.”

Sam gets quiet for a moment, then asks slowly, “You don’t really think Cas is dead, do you?”

And there’s a topic Dean doesn’t want to touch with a ten foot pole right now. “No idea.”

“If he really did make that pact and then broke the Sickle, it kinda sounds like there’s a chance he really did sacrifice himself.”

“Yeah, maybe. But then how did Artemis get involved again?”

“That is kind of weird. She didn’t answer any of my questions when she was zapping us back here.”

Dean grunts, then tucks back into his leftover taco meat.

Sam knows Dean well enough by now to tell when he doesn’t want to talk. “Okay, well, I’m going to do some reading up on blood oaths to see if there’s a way around them. Maybe Cas knew how to neutralize one because of some angelic knowledge that Meg didn’t have access to.”

“Yeah, you do that.”

After eating more than he should have, Dean walks back to his room, not really sure whether or not he should be helping Sam or interrogating Meg or doing something else useful. Baby probably needs some more work—no doubt some of the parts he ordered have come in by now and he could very easily pass the rest of the day working on her.

But he does none of those things. Instead he returns to his room and sits down on his bed, head lowered and hands clasped in his lap. 

“Uh, Cas, can you hear me?” Dean starts, quietly. “I know I haven’t exactly tried to talk to you this way in a while, but I’m a little worried here. Meg says you are dust, but I just can’t believe that cuz you wouldn’t do something stupid like that, right? You had to be cooking something up with Artemis, right? So I guess I’m just askin’ you to show up right now if you can so that I can make sure you’re alright.”

Dean pauses for a moment and looks up and around hopefully. But after the usual woosh of wings doesn’t occur, he drops his head back down again.

“Okay. Maybe you’re hurt or something and can’t get to a phone. But do me a favor and please get in touch as soon as possible. I, uh, I’m worried about you. Last thing I saw you do was shatter that sickle and I gotta say that wasn’t a very encouraging sight.”

Prayer finished, Dean lies back down on his bed. He tells himself he’s just resting up after all the excitement of the last week. But really his mind is going full speed, and there is no way he’s going to be able to sleep anytime soon.

Cas’ last words to him keep running over and over in his mind.  _ “Dean Winchester, I love you. Not as a brother, but as one person loves another that they wish to be with forever. And I always have.” _ Not much room for interpretation there. Cas loves him. Loves loves him. Dean wished that made him feel better. 

And then there’s the strange circumstance of his leg being completely healed. Dean checks it again, hardly believing that after causing him so much pain and discomfort, it’s back to being fine again. There’s not even a scar where the arrow punctured him. 

Sam had said that Artemis told him that Cas broke the spell. A little convenient on the timing there, and in Dean’s life, there’s rarely room for coincidence. So Cas saying he loved Dean is what healed his leg. Why, though? And did Cas know that was going to happen?

Dean’s phone rings and he rushes to get it, then reluctantly picks up after seeing the caller ID.

“Squirrel, so glad you made it.”

“Crowley.”

“Heard it was touch and go there for a while, but you pulled through. Mazel tov. Now, I believe there comes the matter of you turning over a certain instigator to me.”

“Not gonna happen.”

Crowley sputters. “Excuse me? We had a contract.”

“And if you can show us where in the contract it says that we have to give her to you, we’ll dump her on your front doorstep. But Sam says that wasn’t a part of the deal, so she stays with us.”

Crowley goes quiet for a moment, giving Dean a chance to think. “Wait, how did you know we had her anyway?”

“Well, the natural disasters have stopped for over 24 hours, so I figured you had a hand in things. That and one of Meg’s demons defected to my side after Meg was captured. Said a scary goddess in Greek robes dropped in and sent everyone packing.”

“Yeah, Cas called for backup.”

“Clever little angel.”

“Yeah, not too bad to have in a fight. We done?” asks Dean impatiently.

“You didn’t happen to get the bow by chance, did you?”

“No.”

“Pity. That bow is quite powerful and the curse it causes is quite deadly.”

Figuring he has nothing to lose, Dean asks, “What’s the history on it anyway?”

“Ah, no free information for people who refuse to give me political prisoners.” And then Crowley hangs up.

Dean glares at his phone for a moment, then realizes that of the four people around him who seem to know the story of the bow (Cas, Meg, Rowena, and Crowley), one of them is currently in the bunker’s dungeon and available for a deal.

He hurries to the dungeon and doesn’t even bother to tell Sam what he plans to do.

“Back so soon?” asks Meg, petulantly. “Thought you were going to let me stew for a while before taking a whack at getting information out of me.”

“I will hand you over to Crowley right now if you don’t tell me the story behind the bow.”

“Not clever enough to use Google?” Meg snarks.

Dean holds up his phone. “You have three seconds and then I’m dialing.”

“Fine, fine, keep your shorts on.” She shifts, then fixes her eyes on Dean. “You’re a real pain in my ass, you know that?

“The story goes that there was a great war and two lovers were on opposite sides of the conflict. The idiots couldn’t admit how they felt for one another, though, and when one of them accidentally killed the other with an arrow, the bow was cursed by Aphrodite so that any arrow that flies from it will kill the target slowly from poison no matter where they are hit unless the victim’s true love declares their feelings for them.”

Dean frowns. “But Crowley had a potion that halted the damage.”

“Sure, some magics can cancel out others, but in this case because it’s love magic, no other magic can stop it. Love magic always trumps any other magic.”

And then Meg’s eyes widen. “He told you, didn’t he? I never thought Clarence would have the balls to do it, but he did. And that’s how he survived the blood oath—love magic.”

“But he broke the Sickle after he confessed.”

“Doesn’t matter, the love magic was protecting him at that point as you healed. Though, if he hadn’t been one hundred percent genuine in his admission of love, he would have died when he did.” Meg shakes her head. “Either he is the smartest idiot out there or he’s the luckiest.”

“So Cas is alive.” Dean’s heart begins beating a little faster. “He didn’t sacrifice himself after all.”

Meg huffs in annoyance. “Apparently not. Bully for you.”

Dean practically sprints to the library, startling Sam who is deep in a pile of old books. 

“Can you do a location spell? And I need a copy of that book on fairytales.”


	9. Chapter 9

Dean finds Cas hiding out in a cabin near Crater Lake in Oregon.

He knocks on the door, and there’s a long enough pause between his knock and the door opening just a crack that he considers just kicking it in. 

“Hello, Dean.”

Cas only has the door open a couple of inches. It’s enough, though, for Dean to see that he’s shirtless but wearing the most intense frown he’s ever worn in Dean’s presence.

“You gonna let me in?”

“I’m indisposed at the moment.”

Dean pushes forward. “Don’t care. We need to talk. Plus, it’s raining. You’re not going to leave me out in the rain, are you?”

But instead of moving out of the way so Dean can come in, Cas remains where he is and Dean hits the door like a concrete wall. It’s been a while since Dean’s experienced angelic strength, but he’s quickly reminded of the fact that Cas can truly be an immovable force when he chooses.

“Come on, Cas,” whines Dean, rubbing his shoulder. “Enough with the theatrics. I didn’t drive across the entire western US to get bodychecked, uh, doorchecked, by a grumpy angel. Let me in. I’m getting soaked.”

Cas’ stormy expression doesn’t waiver. “No.”

“Please?” Dean tries. 

“Dean, this is not a good time for a conversation.”

“Well then when is a good time? Do I have to be dying for you to talk to me anymore?” asks Dean, exasperated.

That wipes the frown off of Cas’ face. He looks contrite for a moment, then guilty.

“Fine. You may enter. But you should be aware of the fact that I am indeed indisposed.”

“So you’re missing your shirt, what does that m—” Dean cuts himself off as Cas opens the door the rest of the way and steps back.

Because two giant black wings occupy all of the space behind Cas. 

Dean just stares for a moment because despite all this time dealing with angels, he’s never seen a pair of actual angel wings in the flesh before. They’ve always been burnt out on the ground or shadowed against barn walls. To see them in the flesh is almost overwhelming, and Dean can feel himself gaping like a goldfish for a lack of a better response.

But there’s something not quite right—the feathers seem too short.

“They are growing still,” explains Cas as if he can read Dean’s mind. “It will take another four days before they are the appropriate length for flight and before I am able to hide them again.”

“Oh,” says Dean dumbly. “So that’s why you’re hiding out in the middle of nowhere Oregon?”

“Yes,” says Cas, looking away. “I didn’t think it wise to disturb you and Sam while they are growing out.”

Dean finally regains enough sense to walk forward and shut the door behind himself. The wings fold back slightly as he moves toward Cas, like Cas is trying to keep them as far away from Dean as possible. He stops moving.

“You know, we could have found somewhere for you to hang out in the bunker while they grew. You didn’t have to come all the way here—wait, how did you come here?”

“Artemis brought me. In exchange for the pieces of the Sickle, I asked her to make sure you and Sam were safe and to take care of Meg. She brought me here when I agreed to let her have the bow so that I could deal with this problem alone.” Cas emphasizes the last word. 

Dean ignores it. “I gotta know something, Cas. The curse or spell or whatever on my leg. Did you know how to fix it all along?”

Cas looks away again. “Not at first. I wasn’t certain until Rowena came to help with the pain after you fell in Florida.”

“And did you know that you would be able to break the curse?”

Cas looks up then. “No. But I was afraid that if I didn’t try, then you would die soon after I did. And you were so very near death. I couldn’t just let you die.”

“You smashed the Sickle without knowing that the curse breaking would save you, didn’t you?”

Cas pauses for a long moment, then admits, “Yes.”

“Dammit, Cas. You have to stop doing that!”

“It was the only way, Dean. Meg and Enyo were almost too clever for us this time. The blood oath, the threats to your and Sam’s life, they knew exactly how to manipulate the circumstances in their favor. We cannot underestimate them again.”

“Again?”

“You do have Meg in your dungeon, right?” 

Dean nods. “Only thing I don’t know is where Enyo went.”

Cas’ lips quirk up slightly. “I used the Lernaean bow on her. I doubt she will be able to find anyone willing to break the curse before she expires.”

“So she’s off of the playing field. But we’re not out of hot water completely yet.”

“No, we aren’t. There are still Titans loose on Earth’s surface, and although they no longer have the power to cause natural disasters, all it would take is someone clever enough to harness them or find a new means of control before we are right back where we started,” Cas’ wings quiver at that.

“And Artemis has the bow now?”

“Yes. I thought it only fair that the goddess of the hunt possess such an artifact.”

“We trust her not to use it on us or someone we care about?” asks Dean incredulously.

“I could not acquire a promise from her to that effect, but I believe her to be an honorable ally. She did rent this cabin for me, after all. She was not pleased that the Sickle was given to her in pieces, but seemed to understand the necessity. Giving her the bow as well seemed to smooth things over.”

Dean eyes Cas’ wings, which he hasn’t been able to look away from since he entered the cabin. “So, the story mostly wraps up with a happy ending.”

“If you ascribe to such a version of events, then yes.”

They stand there in silence for a long moment.

“So, uh, you gonna give me the grand tour?”

Cas looks like he wants to say something, but swallows it in favor of turning around and walking further into the cabin. Dean admires his wings again as Cas turns his back to him. They are ink black and gorgeous, and Dean desperately wants to get his hands on them to see if they are as soft as they look, but Cas seems touchy about them and Dean’s presence here, so he keeps his mouth shut and his hands to himself.

The cabin itself is a typical wood log cabin, one main room with a kitchenette to one side and two doors in the back, presumably leading to a bedroom and bathroom. The decorating style reminds him of a western motel he and Sam stayed at a while back, a coiled rope against one wall, some metal art with the silhouette of a cowboy on a rearing horse above the fireplace.

Cas sits down on a footstool in the main room, his wings behind him again. There’s a wooden chair a couple of feet away oriented toward the footstool, so Dean takes that.

Somewhat settled in, Dean offers, “Nice place. Who are you renting from?”

Cas narrows his eyes. “Why are you here, Dean?”

“Can’t a guy check in on his friend?”

Cas’ expression turns thunderous again. “I thought you wanted to ‘talk’ to me.” He uses finger quotes.

Suddenly all of Dean’s bravado leaves him. So he says, “Uh, yeah. Wanted to talk about Enyo and what happened to the bow.”

“That’s it?”

Dean fidgets. “Well, I also wanted to see if you were ok.”

Cas stares at Dean for a long moment, then his wings droop behind him and he looks down at his hands. “I’m fine, Dean. You can go back to Sam and the bunker without worry. I will return to you once my wings are fully-grown. I will shortly no longer require human transportation, after all.”

And so you will be able to vanish again whenever you want, Dean wants to say, but keeps those words from leaving his mouth. Instead he quickly glances around the cabin, then settles on a bucket sitting in the corner next to the fireplace. A drop of moisture falls from the ceiling into it as Dean watches. 

“You got a leak?” he asks, looking back at Cas, who is unhappily tracking his line of sight.

Cas nods. “I would attempt to repair it, but I am unfamiliar with the construction of such a domicile. The owner is a kind old man and I did not want to return the property to him in worse condition than I found it.”

Dean grins. “Well, lucky for you, I’ve done some carpentry in my day. Had to work a few construction jobs when money was low on the road.” 

Cas does not seem as enthused about this development. “It is not a large leak, surely it can remain until I return the property.”

“Water damage is a bitch to deal with,” advises Dean. “And besides, I’m gonna need something to do while we wait for your wings to finish growing.”

One of Cas’ wings flares for a moment before he tucks it tightly against his back. “You don’t need to stay. Surely there are things you need to attend to at the bunker. And you must still be tired after the ordeal of being held prisoner for so long.”

“Nah, you healed me after that, remember? And I think Sam was excited to have some alone time for a while to catch up on sleep. I told him I’d be gone for a couple of weeks and only to call if the world was ending.”

“But—”

“Look,” says Dean, cutting Cas off. “I could use a break from things. And spending a few days in a cabin in the Oregon woods sounds like paradise to me. Plus, from the look of things, this place could use a little sprucing up. So, while you finish sprouting those feathers, I’m gonna putz around. Capiche?”

Cas sighs, but nods. Despite the reluctance, Dean feels enlivened. “Good. Now, I think I remember passing a hardware store on the way here, so I’m gonna go get some supplies to patch that roof. You need anything?” At the shake of Cas’ head, Dean stands. “I’ll be back in a bit. Don’t go flying off anywhere while I’m gone, yeah?”

“I already explained that my feathers are still growing and I won’t be able to fly again for at least four days.”

“Well, sometimes you do surprise me, so I just wanted to check that you’d still be here when I got back.”

Cas looks irritated, but merely says, “I will be here.”

“Good.”

\---

Three days pass. The only things marking the time are the rapid growth of Cas’ feathers and the small jobs around the cabin Dean completes. The porch no longer sags in one corner, the kitchen table no longer wobbles, and the roof no longer leaks. Dean’s especially proud of that one because the job had been a little trickier than he’d anticipated. Cas had spent the entirety of that repair job anxiously holding the ladder and asking if Dean was certain about his carpentry prowess. The lack of a leak the following day during another rainshower had been proof enough, and Cas had seemed satisfied about returning the cabin to the owner in better condition.

The tips of Cas’ feathers are just beginning to brush against the floor and his wings must be nearly fully grown when they sit on the porch and watch the sunset the evening of the third night after Dean’s arrival. Cas is on his stool and Dean is in an ancient rocking chair that he also repaired.

They sit in silence, the way most of the time has passed since Dean arrived. Although he’s focused on the beer in his hand and the blaze of light before him, Dean can feel Cas watching him. He’s been doing that the whole time, like he’s waiting for Dean to say something. 

The truth is, there’s so much Dean wants to say, and he’s just not sure how to start. He’s tried to find the words several times, but each time chickened out. And now, with the sunlight catching in Cas’ wings and highlighting iridescent blues, greens, and purples, anything Dean could say seems inadequate next to the otherworldliness of the being beside him. 

But with Cas nearly a full-powered angel capable of flight again, the clock ticking down the hours until Cas leaves again is loud in Dean’s ears. 

He glances over at Cas and finally lets his thoughts past his lips.

“Look, Cas, can I...I need to tell you something.”

Cas shifts uncomfortably. “Yes?”

And then his confidence is lost again. Because those wings, those wings are just so beautiful and  _ Cas _ is so beautiful and how can anything he could say compare?

As if sensing his cold feet, Cas narrows his eyes. “You said you had something to tell me.”

Dean swallows. Adjusts his jacket, shifts in the rocking chair.

“Dean?”

“Look Cas, what you said before you smashed the Sickle.” Dean starts, looking down at his hands. “I just wanted—”

There’s a sudden ‘whoomph’ sound beside him, and Dean looks up to find Cas’ wings have spread out behind him, and if Dean’s not mistaken, it’s in alarm, as Cas’ eyes have gone wide and all the color has drained from his face.

“Unless, um. Nevermind.”

Cas’ facial expression goes impassive and his wings retract. “You had something you wanted to tell me. About what I said.”

“Right, that.” Dean stalls for another minute, takes a swig of his beer, looks out at the fading sunlight. “Can I tell you a story?”

There’s curiosity in Cas’ voice when he replies with, “Yes, you may.”

“So, I tried to find a new story to tell you, I tried for a while actually, but this one just fits too well. So some of this is going to be slightly repetitive, but it’s the best I could do.”

_ “Once upon a time there were two brothers who lived in the woods. They lived in a bunker— _ Hey, don’t give me that look, I’m not as good at this as you are— _ Anyway, they lived in a bunker and spent all their time focused on their job. Which was to hunt down the wicked creatures that lived in the forest and protect the people in the town from getting eaten. _

_ “Anyway, one day the older brother was walking through the woods and found the most beautiful crane he’d ever seen in his life stuck in one of his traps. He freed it, afraid he’d killed it, but the bird flew away, trailing blood. It was getting too dark and stormy for the brother to follow the crane, but he vowed to find it in the morning to make sure it was okay. _

_ “He never got a chance to, because that night there was a knock at the door. A beautiful man stood in the doorway, illuminated by lightning. Now, ordinarily the older brother would be wary of strangers, but this one was something special, he could tell. So he invited the man in and offered him shelter and food. The man accepted, and just like that, the brothers had a new friend and ally. Because this man would help the brothers on hunts, would help with the work around the bunker, and added so much happiness to the brother’s lives that they asked him to stay permanently.  _

_ “The man was very helpful on hunts. But sometimes the older brother wasn’t as kind to him during the hunts as he should have been. He would call the man names or tell him that he wasn’t a very good hunter, even though the man had saved the older brother’s life many times. Additionally, the brothers often would get hurt to protect each other, but rarely did so for the man.  _

_ “But despite this, the man wanted to help them more. So he forbade them from coming into his room one day, and the next emerged with a stunning tapestry. He would not say how he had made it so heavenly, just that the brothers could sell it and keep the money. Which the brothers did, making a tidy profit. They used a little of the money to buy their new brother some more yarn or whatever tapestries are made of. Silk? Whatever. The brothers bought more stuff for the man so he could keep making tapestries because he seemed to like it. And each time the man would shut himself in his room to make one, the older brother became more and more curious. Was the man something not human? Because how else could he make such amazing tapestries? _

_ “One day the older brother foolishly barged in on the man, and found a crane, the crane he had saved all those months ago, standing at a loom. The crane’s wings were picked apart, though, compared to how they had been when the older brother had first met him, and as the brother watched, the crane wove one of his feathers into the tapestry, turning it luminescent. But then the crane turned and saw the brother, and turned back into the man, surprising the brother. The brother tried to apologize, but the crane told him that now that the brother had seen who he really was, he had to leave. _

_ “The older brother begged him not to go. See, the older brother realized that he had abused the crane, making him sacrifice his wings just so the brothers could get rich. The brothers weren’t as kind as they should have been to the man, the crane, I mean. It was their fault that the crane lost its wings in the first place. The older brother never should have set out that trap, never should have made the crane feel like weaving those tapestries was his only way to help. He should have never been unkind to the crane or made him feel like he didn’t belong. Because he did, he was a part of their family, an important part.  _

_ “You see, the older brother had made a mistake. He and his brother had shown one another time and again that they were willing to die for each other, but never had they shown the crane they felt the same way about him. It must have made the crane feel like he didn’t belong, like he was unequal to them and not one of them. _

“But the truth was…is....” and here Dean can’t seem to get any more words out. A long silence passes, but Dean doesn’t dare look up at Cas. He can’t stand to see if his message has landed.

Instead he asks a question.

“Am I wrong in that you’ve been the Crane all along in those stories you were telling me, Cas?” Dean pauses for a moment, then adds quietly, “And I’ve been the one in the story who has been causing the Crane so much pain and rejecting him?”

He finally looks up at Cas and finds him looking at Dean with such a mixture of emotions on his face that Dean can’t tell what he’s thinking.

“Please, Cas, I gotta know.”

Slowly, Cas nods.

“Shit. I thought so, but I really hoped that maybe...look Cas, I’m sorry. Like in that one story with the bear or beaver or whatever, you’re right, I’m another species and don’t understand sometimes. Also, I can be an idiot, I know that, so I swear I take full responsibility for all the crap I’ve thrown your way over the years, okay? I know one little apology doesn’t fix all the shit, and if you hate me I understand, but—”

“I don’t understand.”

Dean’s heart drops. But before he can say anything else, Cas says, “You believe I would hold something against you or hate you for your actions?

“Well, yeah. I have said some pretty hurtful stuff to you over the years.”

“I could never hold a grudge for those things. Dean, I love you.”

“You love me?” Dean repeats, despite the fact that Cas has now said it to him twice.

“Of course.”

Dean’s jaw clenches. “You can’t.”

“I can’t?”

“You shouldn’t.” Before Cas can respond, Dean continues with, “You shouldn’t love someone who’s treated you so badly.”

Cas scoots forward on the footstool, crowding into Dean’s personal space. “You foolish man.”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you remember what I said to you on our first meeting?”

Dean thinks back. “Be not afraid?”

Cas rolls his eyes. “I said that you didn’t think you deserved to be saved.”

“So?”

“And now…now you don’t think you deserve to be loved.”

“That’s not–”

“But you’re wrong. So very wrong.” Cas reaches forward and puts a hand on Dean’s jaw. Dean’s heart skips a beat. “You are worthy of so much love. No matter what you may have been told or have come to believe, that is true.”

Dean looks away.

“I’ve hurt you, too, you know.”

That draws Dean’s eyes back to Cas’.

“Many times.”

“Yeah, but–”

“And yet you still care for me.”

Dean can’t argue with that.

“I know you, Dean Winchester.” Cas’ voice turns fierce. “I know every molecule of your body, I’ve touched your soul and admired its beauty from afar. You are a good man.”

Hell, what’s Dean supposed to say to that?

“And even now you are trying to protect me from yourself. Denying yourself love because you don’t wish to cause me harm. Stupidly, but nobly still the same.”

And then Cas leans forward and gently presses his lips to Dean’s.

Dean’s brain whites out for a moment. 

Cas’ lips are perfect. They are soft but firm, and he kisses like he’s not entirely sure of what he’s doing, which actually reassures Dean, because he’s not entirely sure himself. Sure, he’s kissed loads of people, but there’s something special about kissing Cas. It’s nothing that Dean expected, but now that he’s been given such a gift, it’s everything he could have hoped for.

Dean is tentative at first because he’s worried about appearing too aggressive. Just a return of that gentle touch of lips, once twice three times. Then he captures Cas’ bottom lip between his and lightly sucks, and that gets Cas going. He pushes into Dean’s personal space even more than usual and puts one hand on his hip and the other on the back of his head. He presses flush up against Dean, the rocking chair swinging back with the weight of them both, and that gets Dean’s engine reviving. He starts kissing more aggressively, swiping a little tongue in and then Cas is mirroring him with little kitten licks and soft moans.

“Okay, okay,” says Dean, breaking off a fierce kiss. “Let’s move this inside.” And then it occurs to him that maybe Cas is just interested in kissing and nothing more. “Unless…”

“Unless?” prompts Cas, pulling back a little.

“Are you, uh, do you want to, you know?” Dean asks, the least eloquent he’s ever been in his life.

But Cas seems to understand just fine, because he smiles, the kind of smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes, then stands and pulls Dean to his feet. He pulls him by his arm into the cabin and to the one bedroom that Dean’s been using the last few days.

They pause for a moment, just looking at each other. Dean can hardly believe this is happening, that this is his life. He’s been secretly drinking in Cas’ torso the last three days, adding the image to his naughty folder in his mind for later examination, but never did he think he would be in a position to actually touch him or act on those long-hidden feelings.

As if he can sense Dean’s disbelief, Cas steps forward and brings his giant wings around to essentially hug Dean. The feathers are surprisingly warm and soft, and Dean gasps a little at the sensation of being blanketed by Cas’ wings. Sure, he’s thought of them often in the three days he’s been at the cabin with Cas, hard not to with them always in his eyeline, but never would he have imagined them around him while Cas looks at him like he’s hung the moon.

Cas places both hands on either side of Dean’s face and leans forward to kiss him again. This time the kiss is more confident, more certain, like Cas is less afraid of Dean rejecting him. Which he needn’t worry about _ — _ Dean has never been so sure in his life of something. 

With a happy sigh, Cas pulls back from the brief kiss and tugs at Dean’s jacket. Dean gets the hint and pulls it off, but keeps within the bubble of Cas’ wings as much as he can. It’s safe there, it’s like being home. And there’s power radiating off of the wings, intoxicating in a way that means Dean cannot help himself. With a quick look up to see if Cas is okay with his touch, Dean carefully strokes a finger down the shaft of one of the larger feathers. Cas inhales sharply, but it’s not in upset. If Dean’s interpreting Cas’ expression right, it’s in bliss.

He does it again, a little more forcefully and Cas presses his wings into Dean’s hands as he mutters his name under his breath. Dean smirks. Sensitive after all. He’d hoped so after observing how careful Cas was to keep his wings from bumping into anything, but he couldn’t be sure until he’d had his hands on those gorgeous feathers. And gorgeous they are. Though the iridescence is muted in the dimmer light of the cabin, there is something still incredibly humbling about having a handful of angel feathers in between his fingers. 

He is careful to move his hand in the same direction as the feather growth so as to keep from hurting Cas. He assumes it’s like petting a dog in that there’s a right way and a wrong way, and he’d hate to cause Cas any more pain. That’s not what this moment is about. It’s about them, about finally letting themselves be happy with each other. 

It seems like he’s found the right way, though, because Cas is quick to push back into his space and start kissing him again. God, if he were a writer he’d be composing sonnets in his head about how amazing it is to kiss Cas. Add to that the feeling of being bracketed by wings, and he’s on cloud nine.

It’s Dean who pulls away this time, impatient for more. He removes his shirt and Cas’ hands are instantly on his chest, rubbing a nipple, tracing fingers down his side, holding his hip. Dean grabs the top of one of Cas’ wings gently and applies pressure, indicating he wants Cas to lay down. But Cas just pushes back with the wing until Dean stumbles backwards from the strength. Cas grins up at Dean, then leans back and starts unbuckling his belt buckle. Dean quickly moves to follow and he’s surprised when Cas pulls off his pants and is wearing nothing beneath them.

“Commando, huh?”

“They were unnecessary additions to the uniform that I had to maintain to be acceptable in most human spaces. I understand their practicality to humans, but as an angel, they were superfluous.”

Dean gets his own pants off and rushes to get his underwear off, too (and quickly his socks). Cas falls back onto the bed while he’s doing that, his wings spread wide beneath him and Dean can’t help but stare for moment, one sock hanging from his hand. A goddamn angel is laying before him, how is he so lucky?

“Fuck,” he whispers. And then he’s standing in front of Cas completely naked. He decides not to feel self-conscious because Cas has seen him in every state of undress, has even seen his very soul. That’s not the way this usually goes, Dean having to decide if he’s going to be self-conscious. But this is Cas, and this matters a whole lot that he does this right.

Cas holds out a hand. “Come here, now.”

And that growly command has Dean’s half-hard dick twitching. Because fuck if that isn’t hot. He’s always liked Cas’ voice, but now it just adds a whole new layer of arousal to already arousing circumstances.

He steps forward, then falls, catching himself on his elbows, leaning down so he can kiss the self-satisfied smirk off of that gorgeous face. Skin on skin feels so good, so right. He thrusts a little, thrilled when Cas gasps into his mouth as their cocks line up and there’s a lovely low level of arousal simmering in his veins.

They scooch up on the soft surface, kissing and licking and purposefully bumping and grinding into each other at every opportunity. Dean usually has a script for how this will go, an idea going into things of what he wants. But with Cas he just wants everything. And he can’t stop touching those beautiful black wings. Cas doesn’t seem to mind though, if the hardness against his hip is any indication.

Dean breaks their kiss. “Cas, I gotta know. What do you want?”

Cas stops chasing Dean’s lips long enough to growl, “All of you.”

With a laugh, Dean says, “There’s time for anything you can think of. But what do you want right now?”

“I like this. What we’re doing now. Can we keep doing it?”

“Hell yeah,” says Dean, going back to the kiss and grind, one of Dean’s favorite ways to get off. It’s so desperate and intimate, the push of cocks together mirrored by the slip and slide of tongues. Dean’s not had this in ages, and he absolutely loves it, loves it more because it’s Cas who’s beneath him, Cas who is touching him so viscerally. 

And then Cas begins moaning Dean’s name in between ‘please’s. Dean’s arousal skyrockets and he can’t help but blurt out, “Cas, I gotta. Please?”

Cas looks up at him in question, and Dean is fascinated by the blush across his cheeks for a moment. Then he remembers his question, remembers that he’s been fantasizing about this for so long and he can’t wait for it any longer, he just can’t.

“Can I fuck you? I really need to be inside of you.”

Cas immediately nods and that’s all the permission Dean needs. He reaches across the bed to the side table where his gun and gun cleaning supplies are sitting. The gun oil bottle is thankfully full, and he begins twisting off the cap before thinking better of it.

“Here,” he says, leaning back so he can grab Cas’ thick thighs (and hell, how did Cas get such lusciously thick thighs?) and lift them up. He shimmies down until he’s face to face with Cas’ cock, and catching sight of it, he can’t help himself. He finally gets to have Cas, so damn it, he’s going to have all of him. Throwing the gun oil down beside his hip, he wraps his arms around the backs of Cas’ thighs and engulfs Cas’ cock with his mouth without hesitation.

Cas’ wings beat against the bed, and Dean remains motionless until Cas can get them under control again. Then he’s sucking and licking and revelling in the taste and sensation of Cas’ cock in his mouth. It’s also been ages since he’s done this with someone, ages more since it hasn’t been in some back alley or in a bathroom stall, rushed and over too fast. So he really relishes the moment, going slow, enjoying the stretch of his lips, the feel of his tongue against the different parts of Cas’ cock. 

Then he lets Cas’ cock slip out of his mouth and smack against his stomach with an obscene noise. Cas moans above him, then moans some more as Dean licks at his balls, then below his balls, then further down until he’s finally at his original target. There’s more wing beating, but this time Cas gets it under control faster. The moaning and harsh breathing continues, with some ‘Dean!”s and ‘Oh!’s thrown in. 

Dean works at Cas with the flat of his tongue, triumphant at the squirms and breathy sighs he’s getting out of Cas. He goes at it, totally unabashed, unrestrained. He’s never done this before, but something about Cas just makes him want to give him as much pleasure as possible. And fuck if Cas isn’t so fun to lick there. 

Cas reaches down and squeezes Dean’s shoulder. “Dean, stop. I’m _ — _ I’m going to come if you keep going.”

But Dean is loving this too much and he doesn’t stop, can’t stop. So he attacks him with renewed vigor, and moments later Cas is spilling over his stomach. Dean takes a break from his ass to clean him up with his tongue. Cas just lays there, boneless. Dean looks up his body at his blissed-out face, his closed eyes, his parted lips. His heart clenches, and he realizes that he loves this man, this angel. Always has, but now it’s something more, something deeper.

Tucking that away for the moment, Dean reaches to his hip for the gun oil. He twists open the top and covers his fingers with the oil. He brushes his fingers against Cas’ opening, a thrill running up his spine at the low moan Cas lets out. Slowly, he pushes one finger in, teasing Cas’ rim for a moment before pressing fully in. Cas is relaxed and opens beautifully to him, and it’s not long before Dean has two fingers, then three in him.

“You ready for me?”

“Yes,” Cas rasps out, sounding slightly overwhelmed.

“You okay?” Dean checks.

“Dean, I need you. Please.”

Dean quickly slicks his cock up, then presses in, in, in. Cas is hot and tight and Dean swears his brain is going to melt out of his ears he’s so completely overcome. He drops down onto his elbows, onto Cas’ feathers, breathes in their unexpectedly earthy scent. He would have assumed they’d smell of heaven, of ozone and air, but the fact that they smell like a forest floor after the rain makes Dean feel even more connected to Cas. He’s no longer a being of the sky and stars, he’s of the Earth and of Dean.

“Put your hands on my wings,” directs Cas, one of his own hands in Dean’s hair and the other around his back. “And fuck me.”

Dean grips the tops of Cas’ wings, follows Cas’ directive, rocking back out, then in. Sparks of pleasure shoot to every cell in his body. He gasps out, “Cas!” in shock. He knew it would feel amazing, knew being inside Cas would feel like being home, but this is more, so much more. He fucks up into Cas again and again and again, each time the amazing feeling growing and growing, his hands tightening on the beautiful black wings underneath him. He’s never felt so much, so right, so happy.

It takes no time at all to build up to the conclusion, and they both come, Dean first with a stifled shout, then Cas again a few moments later with Dean’s slick hand jacking him.

Dean collapses on top of Cas, nervous about falling to the side and on top of his wings. Sure, they look and feel strong, but what if they aren’t? So much of what they are is fragility wrapped in strength. And shit, what if this is just a moment and there’s nothing more?

Cas pets Dean’s shoulder, but the anxiety continues growing.

“You’re tense,” Cas observes. “I assumed one would be relaxed after such activities.”

“I am.”

“Is something wrong? Did I do something wrong?”

“Oh my God, no Cas, you were perfect, really.”

“Then why aren’t you relaxed?” Cas gently nudges Dean to his side, and he falls onto one of his wings. Dean tenses further, but Cas just wraps the wing around Dean’s shoulder, unperturbed. Cas brushes a finger over Dean’s face, then leans over to carefully kiss his lips. “What’s wrong?”

Dean tries to swallow his nerves, but they get caught in his throat. What’s wrong with him? Why can’t he enjoy this moment and the fact that he and Cas are finally together?

Cas’ wing tightens around him further. “I’m not going anywhere, Dean. You can tell me whatever it is when you’re ready.”

That loosens something in Dean’s throat and he feels like he can speak again. “Fuck, Cas. I don’t deserve you.”

Cas’ face turns serious. “You do, though. You shouldn’t doubt this.”

Dean looks away, reaches over to run the tips of his fingers along the edge of Cas’ wing. “You’re something else, you know that?”

When Cas doesn’t say anything for a long moment, Dean looks back at him. Cas’ expression is thoughtful.

“I’m not leaving. Not anymore,” he says slowly. “I know I haven’t always been there for you, but I will not abandon you again.”

Dean huffs a laugh. “Cas.”

Cas puts his fingers over Dean’s mouth. “I won’t. I swear to you.”

Dean’s heart beats faster. “You’re not the problem here,” he mumbles against Cas’ fingers.

“What do you mean?” Cas asks insistently, taking his fingers away but keeping his wing tight around Dean’s shoulder.

“It’s me. I’m the problem.”

“Why?”

Dean buries his face into Cas’ wing, breathes in the earthy scent, remembers that a few minutes ago he was revelling in the fact that Cas was his, that that smell meant he belonged with Dean. It gives him courage. 

“You’re mine?” he asks, carefully.

“Always,” says Cas with conviction.

“Well, uh, I’m, you know, yours.”

Cas uses his wing to pull Dean closer. “Good.”

The blocked feeling in his throat eases a little more. “Cuz, uh, I love you, too.”

And the pressure finally completely disappears. He looks over to see Cas smiling at him.

“Thank you, Dean.” Cas leans in and kisses him softly. 

And then Dean realizes why this moment feels so good. It’s like Dean is exactly where and with who he should be. Maybe it’s having the air clear, maybe it’s because it’s Cas, and Cas loves him and he loves Cas. But whatever it is, Dean is happier than he can remember being in a long time.

And even Dean would agree such a feeling is worthy of ending a story with.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end! Thank you so much for reading this fic. [Please go give my artist some love!!](https://verobatto-angelxhunter.tumblr.com/post/632128601395019776/hi-i-present-to-all-of-you-my-artwork-for-the)
> 
> The first story is taken from the Amazon listing of How the Crane Got Its Crown: A Ugandan Folk Tale by Nakiingi Olivia Infield. All others are from various fairytale/folktale websites. If you want a link to the original for any of the stories, please let me know.


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